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THE FAITH, THE FALSITY AND THE FAILURE 
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1 OF PRIME 
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 NOV 12 1925 
 e 
 
 
 
 The Faith, The Falsity and 
 
 ; 4 , Gl asieat cu’ 
 Failure of Christian Science 
 
 By \ 
 WOODBRIDGE RILEY, Ph.D. 
 
 Member of the American Psychological Association; Lecturer 
 - at the Sorbonne, 1920; Author of ‘‘American Thought 
 From Puritanism to Pragmatism’’; 
 
 FREDERICK W. PEABODY, LL.B., 
 
 Member of the Massachusetts Bar; Author of 
 “The Religio-Medical Masquerade’’; 
 
 and 
 CHARLES E. HUMISTON, M.D. Sc.D., 
 
 Professor of Surgery, College of Medicine, 
 University of Illinois 
 
 New York CHICAGO 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 LONDON AND EpINBURGH 
 
Copyright, McmMxxv, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
 
Authors’ Foreword 
 
 HE authors of this volume recognise the right of 
 every adult freely to exercise his choice of re- 
 ligious belief and medical treatment. A re- 
 sponsible, conscious adult may employ any form of 
 treatment for his own physical ills, or dispense with all 
 forms. It is his right to suffer, unrelieved by medical 
 skill, and to die, unattended by a medical doctor, if he 
 wishes. 
 
 This book is written because the authors strongly 
 feel that no one has the right to withhold medical at- 
 tendance and treatment from any sick and suffering 
 child, or from any adult incapable, because of his con- 
 dition, of personal judgment. That barbarity should 
 not be permitted. 
 
 Christian Science professes to be a religion and an 
 infallible curative agency. It denies the efficacy of 
 medical science and withholds medical treatment. The 
 operations of its “ healers’ are precisely the same as 
 total neglect. The results, especially in the case of 
 children, are hideous beyond description. 
 
 Inasmuch as Mrs. Eddy’s religious pretensions and 
 her claimed discovery of a cure-all healing system are 
 wholly false, the authors believe that the most effective 
 cure of the Christian Science distemper, at any rate the 
 best way of preventing its spread, is to present in plain 
 terms the evidence of the Eddy imposture and of the 
 results of the uncontrolled operations of the “ healers.” 
 To this end, Dr. Riley, after a most careful investiga- 
 
6 AUTHORS’ FOREWORD 
 
 tion of the sources of Christian Science, here shows 
 precisely where Mrs. Eddy derived every feature of her 
 religious and therapeutic systems. Dr. Humiston, by 
 many cases selected from a mass of data gathered by a 
 nation-wide questionnaire, shows the tragic results of 
 Christian Science treatment of helpless adults and still 
 more helpless children. Horrible as are the cases pre- 
 sented, Dr. Humiston deemed some of his discoveries 
 too ghastly for publication in a book designed for gen- 
 eral distribution. Mr. Peabody, in terms that will be 
 familiar to readers of his Religio-Medical Masquerade, 
 demonstrates the complete unveracity of the so-called 
 discoverer and founder of Christian Science, her frantic 
 money-grabbing, her literally insane grasping for abso- 
 lute power over her followers, and leaves no doubt that 
 the present government of organised Christian Science 
 zealously emulates its predecessor. 
 
Contents 
 
 PART I 
 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 I. PERSONAL SOURCES . : 
 II. Tur ProsiEM oF PLAGIARISM 
 III. QurmBy, THE DISCOVERER 
 IV. Quimsy, THE MEpIcINE Man 
 V. QuimsBy, THE OCCULTIST Y 
 VI. QuimBy AND THE SCIENCE OF Hearn : 
 VII. From Minp Heainc To METAPHYSICS . 
 VIII. Arcort, THE INSPIRER 
 IX. Mysticism 
 X. Divine SCIENCE 
 XI. DEMONOLOGY 
 XII. PsycHo-ANALYSIS 
 XIII. MARRIAGE AND SEX . 
 XIV. SUMMARY 3 ane ata Sy 
 PART II 
 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 Note. 
 I, AuTOCRACY 
 II, Autocrats 
 III. SupprRESSION 
 IV. SwWINDLING 
 LESS 
 Mie DRAPE A, 
 VII. Casu ae on act hs 
 PART III 
 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN, SCIENCE 
 I, CHRISTIAN ScrENCE—A MeEpicaL PARASITE 
 II, Dece1t ; 
 Ill... Tue Cores’ by Crprerean Scat : 
 IV. Tus Fai,ures oF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE . 
 V. CoNncLUSION . 
 INDEX 
 
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I 
 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
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 PERSONAL SOURCES * 
 
 CCORDING to her own account, issued for the 
 A benefit of the faithful, Mary Morse Baker 
 Glover Patterson Eddy, the thrice-married fe- 
 male Trismegistus, was born about 1820 at Bow, New 
 Hampshire, and counted among her ancestors the hero 
 Wallace and the poetess Hannah More. At the age of 
 eight she experienced a kind of juvenile annunciation, 
 hearing heavenly voices calling her; nevertheless, she 
 soon absorbed much earthly lore in natural philosophy, 
 logic, moral science, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. How- 
 ever, after her discovery of Christian Science most of 
 her knowledge “ vanished like a dream.” Her first 
 conscious reaction was against her father’s relentless 
 theology and the horrible decree of predestination, but 
 the “ emergence into light ” did not come until there 
 appeared on the scene the magnetic Doctor Quimby. 
 Then the cure of an injury that neither medicine nor 
 surgery could reach was the “ falling apple” that led 
 her to the discovery how to be well herself, and how to 
 make others so—the great discovery, the scientific 
 certainty that all causation was mind, and every effect 
 a mental phenomenon. After this cure the prophetess 
 withdrew from society for about three years, to ponder 
 her mission, to search the Scriptures, to found the 
 Science of Mind, in a word, Christian Science. 
 The physical side of this research, the authoress de- 
 clares, was aided by hints from homeopathy, sustaining 
 
 
 
 *This chapter, originally published in The Cambridge History 
 of American Literature, was suppressed under Christian Science 
 influences. See chapter “ Suppression,” pp. 220-224 of this volume. 
 
12 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 her conclusion that mental belief, instead of the drug, 
 governs the action of material medicine; the drug dis- 
 appears in the higher attenuations of homeopathy, and 
 matter is thereby rarefied to its fatal essence, mortal 
 mind; but immortal mind, the curative principle, re- 
 mains, and is found to be even more active. With 
 these fundamental postulates, Mrs. Eddy, in 1870, 
 copyrighted her first publication on spiritual, scientific 
 mind-healing, entitled The Science of Mind, this little 
 book being subsequently converted into the chapter en- 
 titled “ Recapitulation” in the ‘‘ precious volume,” 
 Science and Health. ‘The original treatise, the author’s 
 eatly class-book, is unobtainable, but the summary 
 chapter, revised “ after increased spiritual understand- 
 ing,” gives “ absolute” Christian Science in the form 
 of question and answer. Briefly, this chapter states 
 that there is not more than one God or principle, whose 
 manifestations are mind, never matter; soul, never 
 sense; that man is the likeness of God, pure and 
 eternal; that spirit, soul, is not confined in man, and 
 never in matter. Furthermore, the scientific statement 
 of being is that there is no life, truth, intelligence, or 
 substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infi- 
 nite manifestation, for God is All-in-All. Spirit is 
 immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the 
 real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. 
 Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. 
 Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual. . . . In 
 fine, Divine Science explains the abstract statement 
 that there is one Mind by the following self-evident 
 proposition: If God, or good, is real, then evil, the 
 unlikeness of God, is unreal. And evil can only seem 
 to be by giving reality to the unreal. The children of 
 God have but one Mind. How can good lapse into 
 
PERSONAL SOURCES 13 
 
 evil, when God, the mind of man, never sins? . . . The 
 answer is that Mind is one and all; all is Mind and 
 Mind’s idea. 
 
 Such is the smooth and easy account given by Mrs. 
 Eddy herself, from her “ infant lispings ” to the time 
 when “ Truth came through the person of a New 
 England girl.” This was the “ great discovery ” simi- 
 lar to that of Newton when he discovered the law of 
 gravitation, of Copernicus when he mapped out the 
 stellar system, and of Columbus when he “ gave freer 
 
 breath to the globe,” in other words, the first purely ” 
 
 metaphysical system of healing since Apostolic days, 
 founded on a basis so “ hopelessly original” that all 
 other systems of mental healing are plagiarisms. 
 
 These statements are accepted by the devout at their .,” 
 
 face value. The critic would turn the tables and con- 
 sider this recent form of clinical Christianity to be a 
 series of plagiarisms, in short, a system compounded 
 from the esoteric religion, the occult medicine, and the 
 bizarre metaphysics of the day. So instead of a hall of 
 fame containing Newton, Copernicus, Columbus, and 
 Mary Baker Eddy one would be tempted to substitute 
 
 an obsolete set of waxworks—the Shaker seeress, | 
 
 Mother Ann Lee, the Portland mesmerist Quimby, and 
 transcendentalism’s ‘‘tedious archangel” Bronson 
 Alcott. These three personages form the three clues 
 suppressed in the orthodox account of the founder of 
 Christian Science. Like her book knowledge, they 
 have evidently “ vanished like a dream.” 
 
 It is known, however, that in her girlhood Mary” 
 
 Baker lived near the Shaker community of East Can- | 
 
 terbury, New Hampshire. The canon of this peculiar 
 
 sect was entitled The Holy, Sacred and Divine Roll 
 and Book of the United Society of Believers, This | 
 
14 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 manual of the “ Church of Jesus Christ and Mother 
 Ann” claims that Shakerism is the only religious sys- 
 tem that ‘teaches Science by Divine Revelation.” 
 Between it and Science and Health there are striking 
 resemblances. ‘There is a common denunciation of 
 ‘rationalism and materialism, a common symbolical in- 
 terpretation of the Bible, a common prediction of the 
 last dispensation of spiritual healing. There are also 
 ‘more particular parallels. To Ann Lee was given the 
 “‘ endearing term of Mother ”; to Mrs. Eddy was given 
 the same term. To Ann Lee the Woman clothed with 
 the Sun was the “ divine spiritual intuition as repre- 
 senting the Mother in Deity”; to Mrs. Eddy the 
 Woman was the “spiritual idea or type of God’s 
 Motherhood.” This might be called the notion of 
 religious matriarchy. In the case of Shakerism it was 
 a settled doctrine that the female had never been re- 
 vealed, in her sacred order, before this dispensation; 
 in the case of Eddyism the doctrine was a growth. At 
 first it was expressed guardedly. In Retrospection and 
 Introspection she who, as a child, had heard “ voices 
 not our own,” declared: No person can take the 
 individual place of the Virgin Mary; no person can 
 compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of 
 Nazareth; no person can take the place of the author 
 of Science and Health, “ the discoverer and founder of 
 Christian Science.” The identification between divine 
 and human is not yet made, but in her magnum opus 
 Mrs. Eddy declares: God has been graciously prepar- 
 ing me during many years for the reception of this final 
 revelation of the absolute divine principle of “ scientific 
 mental healing.” But the Key to the Scriptures con- 
 tains the unfolding of this mystery. Like Mother 
 Lee’s Key to the Apocalypse, Mother Eddy interprets, 
 
PERSONAL SOURCES 15 
 
 in her own behalf, the great wonder in Heaven—a 
 Woman clothed with the Sun—as the immaculate idea, 
 represented first by man and “last by woman.” Such 
 is the esoteric doctrine, to be spiritually understood. 
 It is outwardly expressed in the stained glass window 
 in the Mother Church in Boston, where the Woman in 
 the Sun is conjoined with the Revelator’s “ little book,” 
 or Science and Health. 
 
 All this reminds one of the Prophet Joseph Smith, * 
 whose official portrait is graced with a halo. And as 
 the founder of Mormonism was a spiritual healer, so 
 was the founder of Eddyism. Both had as a Scriptural 
 basis the restoration of primitive “ gifts,” but in the 
 case of Mary Baker there was more knowledge, the 
 sorry knowledge of experience. ‘‘ When quite a child,” 
 she narrates, “we adopted the Graham system for 
 dyspepsia.” After her first marriage she tried in suc- © 
 cession allopathy, homeopathy, hydropathy, electricity, 
 spiritualism and mesmerism. In her Miscellaneous. 
 Writings (1899) Mrs. Eddy gives the journal intime 
 of her invalidism. We need not go into these various 
 “isms of mortal mind ” except as to the first and last 
 of the series. As to the Old School the matter was 
 simple; allopathy was abandoned because of the “‘ per- 
 petually egotistical sensibility. . . . We are an homeo- 
 pathist because of our aversion to the dissecting-room,” 
 As for mesmerism, the matter is complex. To Mrs. 
 Eddy mesmerism, in the form of malicious animal 
 magnetism, became personally a haunting fear, and 
 doctrinally the evil principle of the universe... Never- 
 theless it furnished, by a kind of indirection, the first 
 clue to the “ great discovery ” of spiritual, scientific 
 mind-healing. It is to be noted that animal magnetism, 
 which, despite its extravagances, contained hints of 
 
een a ee 
 
 16 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 psycho-therapeutics, was unfortunately kicked out of 
 the front door by Benjamin Franklin, who headed the 
 French commission to investigate the claims of Mes- 
 mer. It came in by the back door, a generation later, 
 in such books as Poyen’s Progress of Animal Magnet- 
 ism in New England, Durant’s Exposition, or a New 
 Theory of Animal Magnetism with a Key to the Mys- 
 teries, and Roger’s Philosophy of Mysterious Agents. 
 From works such as these—and there were dozens of 
 them—and from mesmerisers who travelled the back 
 country Mary Baker was enabled to take her next 
 step in “ metaphysical” healing. The whole tribe of 
 animal magnetisers and electro-biologists she called 
 necromancers of Egypt striving to emulate the wonders 
 wrought by Moses. But there was one exception, the 
 magnetic Doctor Quimby, of Portland, Maine, whose 
 manuscripts, brought to light by a schismatic Eddyite, 
 were variously entitled Science of Health, Science of 
 Health and Happiness, and Christian Science. ‘The 
 issue between Quimbyism and Eddyism, as to which 
 was the original font of wisdom, is really a false issue, 
 because both “ discoverers”? contracted their meta- 
 physical measles from a common source, the magnet- 
 ism of the mesmerists and the gifts of healing of the 
 
 - Restorationists. Confidence in miraculous mental 
 _ healing, as in the case of the Mormons, had remained 
 
 endemic, and neither the Maine healer nor the New 
 
 '. Hampshire seeress had any monopoly of the doctrine. 
 
 Nevertheless, the particular application of this doc- 
 
 _ trine, in the form of removing erroneous beliefs, was 
 due to Quimby. Mrs. Eddy herself wrote, in 1862, 
 
 that she could see dimly at first the great principle 
 which underlies his faith and works: ‘“ The truth which 
 he establishes in the patient cures him, and the body, 
 
PERSONAL SOURCES Ly 
 
 which is full of light, is no longer in disease.” All this 
 disposes of the later statement that Mrs. Eddy was 
 the pioneer in Christian Science, standing alone in this 
 conflict. And that claim is incidentally weakened by 
 her own Lines on the Death of Dr. P. P. Quimby, Who 
 Healed with the Truth that Christ Taught in Contra- 
 distinction to all Isms. 
 
 The year of the demise of the first “ scientist,” in 
 1866, was the year in which Mrs. Eddy says she with- 
 drew from society to found the Science of Mind. So far © 
 _ Christian Science was in an embryonic stage, an un- 
 formed mass of illiterate speculation. To be a success 
 it needed a backbone, and this, curiously enough, was 
 furnished by the great “ spinal” philosopher, Bronson 
 Alcott. Mrs. Eddy gives no details as to her years of | 
 retirement, but in one of these years, when she so- 
 journed in Lynn, Alcott, the sower of ‘“ transcendental — 
 wild oats,” actually addressed her class of “‘ scientific 
 physicians.” Alcott, the vegetarian and visionary, who 
 lived on “ aspiring” plants and deplored the use of | 
 drugs, would naturally be in sympathy with any new © 
 system of healing the sick without medicine. Eddyism, 
 of course, had no apparent effect on the Fruitlands 
 experiment, but what the seeress got from the mystic 
 is not difficult to discover. After sampling all sorts of 
 remedies she now tried Alcott’s, or at least became 
 familiar with the elements of that exotic Neo-Platonic 
 compound. Alcott’s Tablets was published in 1868, 
 and the The Science of Mind in 1870, and between the 
 two works there are fatal correspondences. Ellery 
 Channing complained of being driven into dejection by 
 all thoughts ejected from the Alcottian syringe, but an 
 opposite effect was evidently exerted upon the veiled 
 prophetess of Lynn. Alcott’s speculative system has 
 
18 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 been summarised by a competent philosopher as fol- 
 lows: His first principle is Person, absolute seli- 
 reflection, an immaterial, self-moving, self-making, 
 pure act. This self-determined Being is what we call 
 God, Spirit, or Idea. He creates what is most like 
 himself, hence self-determined or creative beings. 
 They differ from the Absolute person only in degree; 
 they are pure souls. These pure souls may lapse or 
 may not. They have the possibility of lapse, since they 
 are free. Those that lapse create thereby bodies for 
 themselves. This scheme recognises Person as the only 
 substantial, and all else as dependent thereon. This is 
 the opposite of the materialistic scheme. It represents 
 all creation as through thought. The total thought of 
 God thinks the total, and thus Himself is His own 
 object, or Pure Spirit. The Divine, harmonious, pure, 
 unlapsed soul comprehends or seizes all in the One or 
 Person, while the lapsed soul, in the form of sense and 
 understanding, creates spectres. 
 
 It remains to compare all this with the chapter in 
 Science and Health called “ Recapitulation,”’ which is 
 described as taken from the first edition of the author’s 
 - class book, copyrighted in 1870. Here are the funda- 
 _ mentals, given in the form of question and answer: 
 
 What is God? God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, 
 infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle. What are Spir- 
 its? ‘The spirituality of the universe is the only fact 
 of creation. Man is the likeness of God, pure and 
 eternal. How can good lapse inio evil? Man is made 
 in the likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. 
 What is Substance? Spirit, the synonym of Mind, 
 Soul, or God, is the only real Substance. The Spirit- 
 ual universe, including individual man, is a compound 
 idea, reflecting the divine Substance of Spirit. We 
 
PERSONAL SOURCES 19 
 
 begin with Mind which must be understood through 
 the idea which expresses it. All reality is in God and 
 His creation. That which He creates is good and He 
 makes all that is made. Through spiritual sense only 
 man comprehends Deity. Material sense never helps 
 mortals to understand God, Spirit. Evil is but an 
 illusion and it has no real basis. Evil is a false belief. 
 The only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful 
 fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, 
 until God strips off their disguise. 
 
 Such is the sum and substance of Eddyism, “ a first 
 hand revelation,” in which “ unfathomable mind has 
 expressed itself.” Mrs. Eddy’s literary adviser, who 
 emended the later editions of Science and Health, 
 called this a crude revival of Gnostic doctrine. It is 
 assuredly that, for the ancient sect claimed a peculiar 
 knowledge, and sought to remove the real existence of 
 evil as a creation of Deity, contending that it had no 
 absolute existence, but only a relative one to finite 
 consciousness. For the spread of this aberrant Neo- 
 Platonism through Eddyite channels Alcott is indi- 
 rectly responsible. He appeared on the scene at the 
 precise moment when Mrs. Eddy was attempting to 
 understand spirit “ through spiritual sense.” So she 
 lets the cat out of the bag when she declares that after 
 her sacred discovery she affixed the name ‘“ Science” 
 to Christianity, the name “error ” to corporeal sense, 
 and the name “ Substance ” to Mind. 
 
 One logical difficulty remained, and for it the two 
 had a like solution: If the Absolute Idea is perfect, 
 then the most perfect created beings were created first, 
 instead of last. But this is not the Mosaic order, hence 
 Alcott corrects the sacred account in the last of the 
 Tablets, entitled “‘ Genesis.”” In this, as he once fore- 
 
20 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 shadowed it in The Dial, he assumes man to be nature’s 
 ancestor, and nature man’s ruins. But while Alcott, 
 relying upon his library of mystic writers, attributes 
 this solution to Boehme, “the subtilest thinker on 
 Genesis since Moses,” Mrs. Eddy, asserting that “‘ God 
 has set His signet upon Science,” holds that the Genesis 
 account must be “‘ disregarded.”’ As she argues in her 
 Key to Genesis: If matter is first, it cannot produce 
 mind, therefore inspired writers interpret the word 
 spiritually, while the ordinary historian interprets it 
 literally. Now the translators of this record of scien-- 
 tific creation.entertained a false sense of being; they 
 believed in the existence of matter, its propagation, and 
 power. Consequently we are forced to ‘an hypo- 
 thetical reversal.” . . . Thus the creations of matter 
 arise from mist or false claim, or from mystification, 
 and not from the firmament, or understanding, which 
 God erects between the true and false. In error every- 
 thing comes from beneath, not from above. All is ma- 
 terial myth instead of the reflection of Spirit. 
 
 Here ends Science and Health with Key to the Scrip- 
 tures. As this key is not yet a master key, there was 
 added a Glossary containing the “ metaphysical ” in- 
 terpretation of Bible terms, giving their spiritual sense, 
 which is also their original meaning. Thus the word 
 Adam, derived from the Latin demens, means belief in 
 original sin; Babel means self-destroying error; Devil, 
 evil, belief in sin, and animal magnetism; arth, a 
 sphere, type of eternity and immortality which are 
 likewise without beginning and end; Exzphrates, divine 
 science, encompassing the universe and man. 
 
 Judging from these dark sayings and from Mrs. 
 Eddy’s fondness for the aphoristic style, Christian 
 Science is seen to be an extreme, a perverted form of 
 
PERSONAL SOURCES 21 
 
 New England transcendentalism. Indeed, its votaries 
 might be added to the Emersonian list of madmen, 
 madwomen, Muggletonians, and Come-outers.,, And 
 Mrs. Eddy herself resembled the heroine of The Blithe- 
 dale Romance: ‘‘ She was self-deceived by her own 
 phantasms; she possessed the dangerous vertigo na- 
 ture.” Then, too, Mrs. Eddy’s point of view resembled 
 that of Margaret Fuller in her “ search after the unity 
 of things and the divine harmony,” which began with 
 God as Spirit, life, so full as to create and love eter- 
 nally, and ended with ‘‘ dynamic forces destroying sin.” 
 
 The reasons given for the success of transcendental- 
 ism apply most aptly to Eddyism. It possessed all the 
 chief qualifications for a gospel; its cardinal facts were 
 few and manageable; its data were secluded in the 
 recesses of consciousness out of the reach of scientific 
 investigation, remote from the gaze of vulgar scepti- 
 cism; esoteric, having about them the charm of a 
 sacred privacy, on which common sense and the critical 
 understanding might not intrude; its oracles proceeded 
 from a shrine, and were delivered by a priest or priest- 
 ess who came forth from an interior holy of holies to 
 utter them, and thus were invested with an air of 
 authority which belongs to exclusive and privileged 
 truths revealed to minds of a contemplative cast. To 
 the pure transcendentalist the soul when awakened 
 utters oracles of wisdom, prophesies, discourses grandly 
 of God and divine things, performs wonders of healing 
 on sick bodies and wandering minds." 
 
 The course of Mrs. Eddy’s career was that of a tran- 
 scendental priestess. “‘ It was not uncommon,” she 
 says, “in my own church for the sick to be healed by 
 
 
 
 10. B. Frothingham, Transcendentalism in New England, p.. 
 303, 1876, 
 
22 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 my sermon. Many pale cripples went into the church 
 leaning on crutches, who went out carrying them on 
 their shoulders.” 
 
 A disciple tells how, in a public meeting, the audience 
 rose after Mrs. Eddy’s address; the people were in the 
 presence of the woman whose book had healed them, 
 and they knew it; they came in crowds to her side 
 begging for one handclasp; a mother held her sick baby 
 up; others touched the dress of their benefactor; a 
 palsied woman held up her shaking hands and went 
 away healed. By 1888 the deification of the author of 
 Science and Health was an accomplished fact among 
 her followers. The little gift book, Christ and Christ- 
 mas objectifies this belief, for the author of ‘‘ Divine 
 Science ” is represented with a halo about her head. 
 But alongside of this apotheosis should be put its oppo- 
 site, the doctrine of demonology. The history of this 
 doctrine to present-day Eddyites belongs to what their 
 leader would call “‘ the etcetera of ignorance.” On the 
 advice of her literary censor the original chapter on 
 “unbridled mind-manipulation’”’ was dropped after 
 the third edition of Science and Health, but the belief 
 persisted. At first the seeress had declared that mes- 
 merism, as the transference of thought to base ends, 
 was mental malpractice, the scourge of men, a means 
 whereby an evil mind could destroy a hated neighbour’s 
 flocks and herds. This early account, because of its 
 personalities, was omitted as libelous, but that did not 
 prevent Mrs. Eddy from bringing suit against a recalci- 
 trant student for practising witchcraft—and that in 
 the village of Salem. 
 
 With this episode the account may be closed. 
 Eddyism, like Mormonism, appears to be a series of 
 plagiarisms, mingled with strange anachronisms. One 
 
PERSONAL SOURCES 23 
 
 generation later than the Latter-day Saints, it falls 
 within the penumbra of transcendentalism, but it is 
 transcendentalism gone mad. It is not like the obverse 
 of a clear-cut medal, but resembles the tangled threads 
 on the wrong side of a piece of tapestry. The same 
 colours, the same materials are used, but the pattern is 
 awry. It was the part of Mrs. Eddy’s literary adviser 
 to untangle these threads, but no cosmos could be made 
 out of such a chaos. Almost any page of Science and 
 Health contains the cardinal principles, but it needs 
 more than the added rubrics to clear up the confusion. 
 Whatever system there may be is a distorted reflection 
 of a better mind, that of Alcott. Like the author of 
 the Orphic Sayings, Mrs. Eddy is a theologic idealist, 
 intoxicated with “the One.” But unlike Alcott, she 
 suffers from a species of persecutory hallucination. 
 The Erinyes of evil pursue her, and the problem of sin 
 is a haunting dread. So her system lapses into an 
 ill-balanced dualism,—on the one side the Christian 
 God, on the other “evil, devil, malicious animal 
 magnetism.” 
 
II 
 THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 
 
 “The Religion of Christ is shown in the progress of 
 Christian Science.’—P, P. Quimsy, 1863. 
 
 “In the nineteenth century I have fixed for all time the 
 word Sctence to Christianity.’—Mrs. Eppy, 1875. 
 
 HEN a hard-drinking Irishman was told by 
 his doctor that he was dying of water on the 
 
 chest all he asked was this: “ Where in the 
 wurrld did it come from?” This is our own query in 
 regard to Christian Science and now it is answered, at 
 least as regards what Mrs. Eddy was wont to call her 
 “precious discovery, hopelessly original, the seventh 
 wonder of the world.” The complete Quimby manu- 
 scripts, which the Christian Scientists have so long 
 denied as non-existent, now see the light of the printed 
 page.’ Their appearance is opportune, especially at a 
 time when the authorities are publishing full-page ad- 
 vertisements as to the absolute uniqueness of Eddyism. 
 These documents show that the Eddyite therapeutic 
 system was not original with its alleged author, but 
 that another source lay back of it. This was the mind 
 of Phineas P. Quimby, the Portland healer, who not 
 only coined the phrase ‘‘ Christian Science,” but con- 
 tinually harped on the “ essential”? Eddyite doctrine 
 
 
 
 *The Quimby Manuscripts, selected by H. W. Dresser, New 
 York, 1921. 
 
 24 
 
THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 25 
 
 that disease is merely an error of mortal mind,— 
 “‘ Smallpox and kinepox are both ideas,” as he put it. 
 Thus we can show, and show conclusively, that the 
 therapeutic hints were taken directly from Dr. Quimby, 
 the Portland practitioner. Maine was the Eddyite 
 medical Mecca, and the efforts of a broken invalid to 
 reach that spot are here completely described. Others 
 have partially quoted these documents. As early as 
 1882 the ex-Eddyite student, Arens, showed that the 
 “revelations”? were only Quimbyisms. While, in 
 1907, Miss Milmine published her sensational exposure 
 of the life and works of Mary Baker Glover Eddy, 
 only to have the plates of the book destroyed by the 
 publishers. This happened presumably under Chris- 
 tian Science pressure, as was actually the case with the 
 Arens article. So, for twenty-five years, only a part of 
 the truth could be reached. Practically the whole 
 truth is now before us, for the time being at least. 
 Therefore let us turn to the documents. These include 
 not only the letters of Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Patter- 
 son) to her “ revered master,’ Quimby, but Quimby’s 
 own manuscripts. From the latter we select Questions 
 and Answers and Christ or Science, since they formed 
 the basis of that chapter of “‘ fundamental ” Eddyism 
 entitled Recapitulation, which, in turn, was inflated 
 into Science and Health. ‘The letters of Mrs. Patter- 
 son are both pathetic and primitive. As will be re- 
 called, she had tried all sorts of cures from allopathy 
 and homeopathy, through hydropathy and electricity, 
 to spiritualism and mesmerism. So, on May 29, 1862, 
 she began her first letter to Dr. Quimby thus: ‘‘ Dear 
 Sir: I address you briefly stating my case. I have been 
 sick six years with spinal inflammation, and its train 
 of suffering—gastric and bilious.” 
 
26 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 As we would probably be restrained from quoting 
 in extenso we can give only brief and broken extracts 
 from these epistles, which have already been with- 
 drawn from circulation, leaving the public ignorant of 
 their existence. On May 29, 1862, the patient is 
 suffering from gastric troubles. By January 12, 1863, 
 something supernatural has happened. So she writes 
 to Quimby: “ Your angel-visit has removed all my 
 stomach-pain.”” This was the first instance of cures 
 at a distance, or what came to be called absent 
 treatment. As the patient puts it on the follow- 
 ing September 14, “I would like to have you in 
 your Omnipresence visit me at eight o’clock this eve, 
 if convenient.” But besides omnipresence there is 
 almost a real presence. On April 10, 1864, dear Dr. 
 Quimby is told: ‘‘ Last Wednesday at 12 m. I saw you 
 in this parlor where I am now writing. You wore a 
 hat and dress-coat.” 
 
 Absent treatment, omnipresence, real presence,— 
 these are the positive links in a lengthening chain. 
 But the chain is threatened by a break. Absent treat- 
 ment has not only its positive but its negative aspect. 
 On April 24, 1864, Quimby is asked: “ Please attend 
 to my case when you get this; dyspepsia and constipa- 
 tion; two bugbears that Miss Jarvis has just got rid of 
 and saddled on to me.” ‘This cryptic complaint, the 
 inadvertent transfer of symptoms, is explained in the 
 succeeding letter, which declares: ‘As I. took Miss 
 Jarvis’ heat I found in it her fears, and those made 
 me frightened, but my heat contained the first of my 
 ideas, that was, the old spinal complaint.” 
 
 Absent treatment in its negative form is now rein- 
 forced and made a doctrine of dread. The letter just 
 quoted continues: “ While I was weakened by my 
 
THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 27 
 
 sufferings the terror of this home and people took fast 
 hold of me, and the morning after, I wrote you.” Here 
 is the germ of what, later, became in completed Eddy- 
 ism the evil principle of the universe—the belief in 
 malicious animal magnetism. Out of these letters, by 
 this time suppressed, the complete early blueprint of 
 the later structure may be traced, from absent treat- 
 ment to M.A.M. They also give a complete history of a 
 chronic invalid, a history which cannot be denied, for 
 we have the letters in facsimile. But all this is only 
 preparatory to the question of literary sources, espe- 
 cially as to that curative doctrine which apparently 
 dragged a woman who described herself as a “ hopeless 
 invalid ” out of the slough of despond. Letter No. 12, 
 last quoted from, gives the acknowledgment of the 
 positive contribution. After the hallucinatory vision 
 of the Portland healer, Mrs. Patterson says, “I am up 
 and about today, z e., by the help of the Lord 
 (Quimby).” ? 
 
 The question of plagiarism is like a question of 
 priority in patents. It,simply resolves itself into this: 
 Here are two models; which was the first, exhibit A or 
 exhibit B? If Eddyism can be shown to contain the 
 essential features of Quimbyism and Quimby preceded 
 Mrs. Eddy in this therapeutic system, then the latter 
 infringed on the rights of the former. Dresser im- 
 plies as much in two statements, though he declares 
 that his book is not controversial but documentary. 
 The first statement is that without Quimbyism there 
 would have been no Eddyism; the other is that the first 
 volume of Quimby’s writings, entitled Christ or 
 Science, was sometimes loaned to students, “ including 
 
 
 
 2 Also quoted in Milmine, p. 64, 
 
28 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 the one who made liberal use of their contents.” The 
 ‘one ” here referred to is, of course, Mrs. Eddy, and 
 this liberal use can be shown by putting in conjunction 
 quotations from Quimby’s copy-book and quotations 
 from Mrs. Eddy’s letters. By suppressing the latter 
 (exhibit B) this comparison is apparently rendered 
 ineffective, but another way remains. Mrs. Eddy’s 
 letters contain only hints of the Quimby doctrine, such 
 as absent treatment, omnipresence, the chemicalisation 
 of thought. The first edition of Science and Health 
 contains the complete doctrine elaborated ad nauseam. 
 Hitherto we have had only brief excerpts from Quim- 
 by’s Christ or Science. Now the entire work lies 
 before us, and it is easy to see that “ absolute Chris- 
 tian Science,” as a system of healing, is little but the 
 Quimby system. 
 
 Thirteen years before the first edition of Science and 
 Health, Quimby wrote a series of ‘‘ Questions and An- 
 swers,” in which anyone may recognise the regular - 
 Christian Science glossary. Take these examples: 
 
 “Question 1: You must have a feeling of repugnance 
 towards certain patients. How do you overcome it and 
 how can I do the same? Answer: My wisdom sees their 
 condition, feels their woes and comes to the rescue, but to 
 get them from their enemy is often an arduous task. . . . 
 Question 3: Our spiritual senses are often more acute 
 than our natural ones. What is the difference? What do 
 you call the spirit-world? Answer: The natural senses 
 are under the law governed by the knowledge of the 
 natural world, subject to all the penalties and punishments 
 man can invent. . . . The spiritual senses have their spir- 
 itual world, but the communication is not admitted by the 
 natural man except as a mystery. . . . Question 6: If I 
 understood how disease originates in the mind and fully 
 
THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 29 
 
 believe it, why cannot I cure disease? Answer: If you 
 understand how disease originates, then you stand to the 
 patient as a lawyer does to a criminal who is to be tried 
 for a crime committed against a law that he is ignorant 
 of breaking, and the evidence is his own confession. You 
 know that he is innocent, but you can get no evidence, only 
 by cross-questioning the evidence against him. Disease 
 has its attending counsel as well as truth or health, and to 
 cure the sick is to show to the judge or their own counsel 
 that the witness lies. This you have to show from the 
 ‘witness’ own story, then you get the case. The error is 
 on one side and you on the other, and out of the mouth 
 of the sick comes the witness.” ® 
 
 There lies before me a presentation copy of the first 
 edition of Science and Health given by Mrs. Eddy 
 (then Mrs. Glover) to a certain library. From this I 
 take a series of quotations similar, not only in lan- 
 guage, but also in thought to Quimby’s answer to the 
 questions put to him by his patients. In order to show 
 that Mrs. Eddy’s volume is not, as she says, ‘‘ hope- 
 lessly original,’’ one has only to make a comparison of 
 the two documents. Quimby’s manual for the use of 
 his students was more or less practical, and written in 
 a plain style. With it we may compare the original of 
 Science and Health, where the same notions are han- 
 dled in a highly fanciful way. For instance, as to 
 repugnance, Mrs. Eddy says, ‘‘ We have observed with 
 our students, and with the sick, a constant recurrence 
 of morbid symptoms, moral and physical, till the con- 
 flict is decided on the part of Truth. . .. Patients 
 with certain mentalities, or students with wrong tenden- 
 cies and habits, are more difficult to heal or to teach 
 
 
 
 > Quimby Manuscripts, Chap. XIII. 
 
30 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 than others differently constituted.” As to the “ spir- 
 itual senses ” being more acute than our natural ones, 
 Mrs. Eddy explains that ‘ Mind has senses sharper 
 than body,” and in addition declares, “‘ There is more 
 Christianity in seeing, hearing, etc., spiritually than 
 materially, more science and more God in spiritual 
 sense than in personal sense.” 
 
 Similarities such as these could be repeated at great 
 length, but a more fatal correspondence occurs when 
 Mrs. Eddy borrows, expands, and renders grotesque 
 the comparison made by Quimby in regard to what 
 he considered the trial of Disease in the court of 
 Christian Science. Here Quimby’s pupil writes as 
 follows: 
 
 “We will suppose a case on the docket of mind, in 
 which a man is charged with liver-complaint. The patient 
 feels ill, ruminates, and the trial commences. Personal 
 sense is plaintiff ; Man, the defendant; Belief, the attorney 
 for Personal Sense; Mortal Minds, the jury, and Materia 
 Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Mesmerism, and Medium- 
 ship the judges. The evidence for the plaintiff being 
 called, testifies: ‘I am Laws of Health, was present on 
 the nights the prisoner (patient) watched with the sick, 
 and, although I have the superintendence of human 
 affairs, was personally abused on those occasions, and in- 
 formed I must remain silent until called for at this trial, 
 when I should be allowed to testify in the case.’ . . . The 
 next witness testified, ‘I am Nerves. . . . I was witness 
 to the crime of liver-complaint; knew the prisoner would 
 commit it, for I convey messages from my residence in 
 matter, alias brains, to the body, and am on intimate terms 
 with Error, a personal acquaintance of the prisoner, but a 
 foe to Man.’ . . . Judge: ‘ Did Man, by doing good to his 
 neighbour, possess himself of disease, transgress your laws 
 
THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 31 
 
 and merit punishment?’ ‘He did.’ ... The deposition 
 of Bowels was then read, they being too inactive to be 
 present.” * 
 
 In making these comparisons we infer that there is 
 a strong case for plagiarism. There is, of course, the 
 alternative possibility of two great minds working 
 upon parallel lines. But when one mind follows an- 
 other, both in general doctrines and in particular de- 
 ‘tails, mere coincidence becomes a strained explanation. 
 Mrs. Eddy by ten years of recension and alteration of 
 the Quimby Manuscripts sought to cover up her tracks, 
 but the small, neglected resemblances give her away. 
 The Trial of Disease is one case; others are found in 
 out-of-the-way references all the way from the double 
 nature of Jesus the Christ to the strange case of Casper 
 Hauser, “‘ the infant boy incarcerated in a dungeon,” 
 with ‘less intelligence than a mouse.” ® 
 
 We have already noticed the similarity between 
 Quimby’s Answers to Fifteen Questions and the Ques- 
 tions and Answers given in the chapter of Science and 
 Health entitled “‘ Recapitulation.”” This chapter, says 
 Mrs. Eddy, is from our class book, first edition, 1870. 
 Upon scrutiny the latter document divides itself into 
 two parts, the first concerning metaphysics, which will 
 be accounted for later, the last concerning therapeutics, 
 or healing, which contains the same questions and 
 largely the same answers as those given by Quimby. 
 
 
 
 * Science and Health (first ed.), Chap. VIII, Healing the Sick. 
 * Science and Health (first ed.), p. 357. Compare Dresser, 
 Quimby Manuscripts, p. 430. 
 
iil 
 QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 
 
 “<The best spirer of hope ts the best physician, an 
 aphorism which contains the germ of the Freudian theory 
 of psychoanalysis—to ‘ minister to the mind diseased’ by 
 removing the splinter of worry or misery from the brain, 
 in order to restore the patient to a cheerful state of mental 
 equilibrium. This fact has been utilised by all ‘ nature 
 healers’ and faith-curists with varying degrees of success, 
 and tt is the secret of all charlatans, from Apollonius of 
 Tyana, Valentine Greatrakes, Cagliostro, ‘Spot’ Ward, 
 Joanna Stevens, Mesmer, James Graham, John St. John 
 Long, and the Zouave Jacob down to the days of Dowte- 
 ism and Eddyism.’—History oF MEDICINE (Garrison). 
 
 (,) css may justly be called the discoverer of 
 
 Christian Science from the therapeutic side. 
 
 The internal evidence, here and elsewhere, 
 shows striking similarities and the external evidence is 
 conclusive. We now know that Mrs. Eddy got her 
 copy of Questions and Answers in Portland, in 1862, 
 that is, she was free to make her own copy, as there 
 were three or more copies in regular circulation among 
 the patients and J. A. Dresser loaned her his copy of 
 Volume I of the manuscripts.* 
 
 Then, too, we have the testimony of the only sur- 
 viving assistant of Mrs. Eddy in getting out the 
 first edition of Science and Health. As Daniel H. 
 Spofford has recently said: “The Quimby Manu- 
 
 
 
 1 Letter of Mr. H. W. Dresser to the Writer, December 13, 1921. 
 32 
 
QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 33 
 
 scripts. . . . These were what Mrs. Glover started 
 in business with.” ? 
 
 Despite all the evidence as to Mrs. Eddy’s pickings 
 from Quimby, the former grew bolder in her disclaim- 
 ers as time went on. She also put the date of her 
 discovery further and further back. As Milmine has 
 pointed out, Mrs. Eddy assigned no less than three 
 dates for her initial ‘‘ revelation,” these dates being 
 1866, 1853, and 1844. The strongest evidence of this 
 double dealing is found in her condescending preface 
 to the eighth edition of Science and Health: 
 
 “The old gentleman to whom we have referred had 
 some very advanced views on healing,” she says, “ but he 
 was not avowedly religious, neither scholarly. We ex- 
 changed thoughts on the subject of healing the sick. I 
 restored some patients of his that he failed to heal, and 
 left in his possession some manuscripts containing cor- 
 rections of his desultory pennings. .. . The only manu- 
 script that we ever held of his, longer than to correct it, 
 was one of perhaps a dozen pages, most of which we had 
 composed. . . . We refer to these facts simply to re- 
 fute the calumnies and false claims of our enemies, that 
 we are preferring dishonest claims to the discovery and 
 founding at this period of ‘ Metaphysical Healing or 
 ~ Christian Science. . . . Since our discovery, in 1866, 
 of the divine science of Christian Healing we have la- 
 _ boured with tongue and pen to found this system,” ® 
 
 The next disclaimer arose from an article written by 
 
 
 
 ?Mr. Spofford to the Writer, October 11, 1921. As to Mrs. 
 Eddy’s early opinion of Mr. Spofford, compare her letter of Feb- 
 ruary 24, 1875, to a cousin. “‘ Dear Cousin. ...I1 was sorry to 
 hear that your sister was not well. Dr. Spofford is doing cures 
 more difficult than hers constantly.” (Quoted in The New York 
 American, Feb. 26, 1911.) 
 
 °1884. Preface, p. 4. 
 
384 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Mr. J. A. Dresser, in the Boston Post of 1883. Four 
 years later Mrs. Eddy furnished some highly charac- 
 teristic reasons for the alleged borrowing. As she 
 could express herself in her own official organ her style 
 is somewhat sarcastic: 
 
 “Did I write those articles in Mr. Dresser’s pamphlet 
 purporting to be mine?” she asks. “I might have written 
 them, twenty or thirty years ago, for I was under the 
 mesmeric treatment of Dr. Quimby from 1862 until his 
 death, in 1865.4 He was illiterate, and I knew nothing 
 then of the science of Mind-healing. . . . After the 
 death of this so-called originator of Mind-healing, it re- 
 quired ten years of nameless experience for me to reach 
 the standpoint of my first edition of Science and Health. 
 
 . It was after the death of Mr. Quimby, when I was 
 apparently at the door of death, that I made this discov- 
 ery, in 1866. After that it took about ten years of hard 
 work for me to reach the standard of my first edition of 
 Science and Health, published in 1875. . . . If ever 
 Mr. Quimby’s ominous Manuscripts are brought to light, 
 it will be when my copyrights have expired.” ® 
 
 Here are several different accounts. All of them 
 contradict the two earliest given dates of the grand 
 “discovery.” Then, too, the charge that Quimby was 
 unscholarly and illiterate comes rather curiously from 
 an author who “ reached the standard ” of phrases like 
 these: ‘‘ God is a phenomena ”’; “a bacilli was gnaw- 
 ing at the heart of the metropolis”; “As the vox 
 populi observed the success of this Christian system 
 of healing . . . they became deeply interested in it.” 
 
 All this was more or less a case of the pot calling 
 
 
 
 * Quimby died Jan. 16, 1866. 
 5 Christian Science Journal, 5.109-115. 
 
QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 35 
 
 the kettle black. Quimby did write some incoherent 
 stuff, but nothing to equal the following instructions 
 given to Mr. Horace T. Wentworth for treating the 
 sick. A passage from this manuscript which follows 
 the original spelling and punctuation is as follows: 
 
 “What is heat and chills we answer nothing but an 
 effect produced upon the body by images of disease before 
 the spiritual senses wherefore you must say of heat and 
 chill you are not hot you are not cold you are only the 
 effect of fright there is no such thing as heat and cold if 
 there were you would not grow hot when angry or abashed 
 or frightened and the temperature around not changed in 
 the least.” 
 
 The Quimby Manuscripts were certainly ‘“ omi- 
 nous,” and they furnish a further clue to the mesmeric 
 influence referred to. What they show is the strange 
 mentality of a teacher who handed on his peculiar doc- 
 trines to his patient. Eddyism was not published to 
 the world before 1875, but before 1856 Quimby’s early 
 writings disclosed a curious kinship, such as the bizarre 
 beliefs that the inward man governs the outward man; 
 that the vapour around persons contains the identity of 
 the person; and that there is an unconscious effect of 
 persons on each other. —e 
 
 By this “ unconscious effect ” one can prove or ae 
 prove almost anything. Mrs. Eddy employed it to 
 explain matters as far apart as her inadvertent repro- 
 duction of Quimby’s doctrines and her belief in ma- 
 licious animal magnetism. Here, then, is the parallel 
 mental development between master and pupil, the evo- 
 lution of Quimby’s thought, through the mesmeric 
 period to “ the emergence into light.” That light is to 
 us darkness, for in the crucial transition Quimby passes 
 
86 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 from the natural to the preternatural. But while dis- 
 covery of “principle” is to us negative, the discovery 
 of certain hypnotic phenomena is positive. Without a 
 scientific knowledge of these phenomena—and they are 
 most remarkable—the Portland practitioner neverthe- 
 less found them out for himself. They are put in a 
 fantastic and whimsical way, but beneath his descrip- 
 tion there lie some grains of truth. Under so-called 
 mesmerising the senses are rendered more acute. The 
 eye can see more clearly, the ear hear more acutely, 
 and even the sense of smell and touch are rendered 
 sharper. But to say that “spirit has senses more 
 acute ” than the understanding is to beg the question. 
 The psychologist grants hyperesthesia—visual, audi- 
 tory, tactual, etc-—that is, experiment shows that, 
 within certain limits, subjects in the light hypnotic 
 state can read print at an unusual distance, hear sounds 
 almost inaudible to others, and detect odours with 
 nearly the precision of a hunting-dog. But again to 
 say that in the latter case the spirit can “ scent spirit- 
 ual atmospheres ” is confusing the issue. There is no 
 such thing as the aura,—as an effluvium of an “ astral ” 
 body. Some impatient punster has declared that one 
 might better speak of a jack-astral body. There is 
 hyperesthesia—or heightened sense perception; but 
 this heightening is within limits. | 
 
 For example, the hypnotised patient can read a book 
 held at an unaccustomed distance; but beyond a cer- 
 tain limit, depending on the size of the type, no words 
 can be distinguished. And the Frenchman who offered 
 a prize for a mesmerist who could read in the dark 
 never lost his money. The same holds true in regard 
 to the other senses; they all have a limen or threshold 
 beyond which the human senses—even in the hypnotic 
 
QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 37 
 
 state—cannot pass. But the supernaturalist takes no 
 heed of this. To him the critic is a mere king Canute 
 who attempts but vainly to set limits to the waves of 
 thought. 
 
 Quimby is not fettered by such considerations. He 
 would call spirits from the vasty deep. He passes 
 through the mesmeric period and passes beyond. Not 
 only has the spirit senses sharper than the understand- 
 ing; not only can it perceive what is hidden to mortal 
 mind, but, reversing the more or less passive process of 
 perception, it can be an active center. ‘“‘ Man,” says 
 the master, “has the power to create ideas and to 
 make them so dense that they may be rendered visible 
 to others.” © This power of projection manifests itself 
 in conveying messages to others; in sending out warn- 
 ings, and even in making “ angel visits.” In short, the 
 soul is a telepathic projecting lantern which dispatches 
 express images of itself to those especially favoured. 
 
 When the doubter asks how it is done, there is no 
 answer. It is a matter of faith and not of reason, of 
 doctrine and not of demonstration. And just as later 
 the “ belief ”’ comes to be the “ cure,” so here there is 
 the preliminary belief that the disciple sees the master 
 in his “‘ omnipresence.” But the critic is not converted 
 to this way of thinking by mere statement. Take the 
 case of the penetrating gaze of the comic characters 
 portrayed in the newspaper cartoons. The artist often 
 represents the glances between them by dotted lines. 
 Rub out the dotted lines, and what remains? Nothing. 
 So here. One can talk about telepathy and clairvoy- 
 ance at a distance, about thought transference and the 
 power of the soul to project itself through space, but 
 
 
 
 ®Ouimby Manuscripts, p. 46. 
 
38 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 rub out the words and there remains nothing. Yet out 
 of words theories can be built and the ingenuity of 
 Quimby, the spiritual healer, is equal to the inventive- 
 ness of Quimby, the clock maker. We hold that 
 Quimby was a man of parts, but that some of the parts 
 were missing. Wonderful speculative machines can be 
 built out of magic words and occult phrases, but the 
 connection between these words and phrases is where 
 the puzzle comes. My mind can move my finger; but 
 my mind cannot move my pen without the intervention 
 of my finger 
 
 So with this fundamental proposition of the influence 
 of mind on mind without any medium. Quimby was 
 clever enough to see that there was a missing link, and 
 that some kind of metaphysical ratchet was needed to 
 make the wheels engage. So he invents, or rather pro- 
 pounds, the theory of mind as a highly rarefied form 
 of matter. To his latest interpreter, who belongs to 
 the purely immaterialistic school, all this is a stum- 
 bling-block. He declares that Quimby fails here; that 
 his theory is dark and obscure. It is nothing of the 
 kind. It is an old belief brought up to date. The 
 English philosopher Hobbes, in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, declared that he did not deal with spirits, angelic 
 or divine, since “a spirit is a physical body refined 
 enough to escape the senses.”” Quimby holds the same 
 belief as to spirit being essentially an attenuated form 
 of matter, but he so rarefies the human spirit that it 
 is unable to perceive other rarefied human spirits. 
 
 In modern terms this would be called “the mind- 
 stuff” theory, and Quimby ingeniously propounded it 
 a decade or two before the English thinker Clifford. 
 The latter, of course, sought a purely rationalistic ex- 
 planation of the baffling problem of the relation of body 
 
QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 39 
 
 and mind. By the help of “ mind-stuff” he built a 
 tenuous, yet logical bridge between the two objects. 
 Quimby is not so clear, yet he is quite ingenious. If 
 spirits are absolutely pure, there is no possible means 
 of communication between them. ‘There may be a 
 logical relation between A and B, but if the minds of 
 both are pure transparencies how does A know when 
 -B is around? They must render themselves visible to 
 each other; signals are not communicated without 
 something to signal with. Hence arises the need of 
 some sort of soul-stuff and of the power of the spirit 
 to render itself a tenuous but visible entity. 
 
 In all this Quimby was ingenious, but he was not 
 original. He had been through his mesmeric period 
 and the mesmerists of his day were variously called 
 magnetic healers, electro-biologists and the like. Now 
 electricity at that time was considered a fluid. Frank- 
 lin had propounded the theory, but he would have been 
 mightily surprised at the uses made.of it. By his light- 
 ning conductors he sought to save houses and barns, 
 men and cattle. But the magnetic healers and electro- 
 biologists sought to convey occult messages, miracu- 
 lously heal diseases, and even to save souls from the 
 errors of mortal mind by means of this wonderful mag- 
 netic fluid. Mesmer himself was, of course, responsible 
 for this perversion. He talked about “a universal 
 principle,” the magnetic fluid—“a fluid universally 
 diffused, so continuous as not to admit of a vacuum, 
 incomparably subtle, and naturally susceptible of re- 
 ceiving, propagating, and communicating all motor 
 disturbances, is the means of the influence.” * 
 
 But see what strange uses are made of this theory. 
 
 
 
 7 Binet and Féré; Animal Magnetism, p. 5, New York, 1898. 
 
40 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 In an old Yankee chap-book which circulated in 
 Quimby’s region there is a diagram showing how the 
 dangerous electric fluid may be kept off by oiled spec- 
 tacles, as if oil would not mix with the electric fluid. 
 Franklin, of course, propounded the fluidic theory of 
 electricity, but he would have smiled a quizzical smile 
 at this application of it. Later we shall see this 
 “Principle ” psychologised by the Quimbyites and 
 capitalised—in more senses than one—by the Eddy- 
 ites. And so that which began as a magnetic fluid with 
 Mesmer, ends in becoming a mere ghost of itself in 
 The Christian Science Monitor—a journal which pre- 
 fers to put the word “ Principle ” on the “ Walls of the 
 Universe ” and take down the good old-fashioned word 
 “God,” the latter being apparently out of favour as 
 suggesting a certain masculinity, 
 
IV 
 QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN 
 
 “Psycho-therapy, indeed, might well be cited in sup- 
 port of the old adage that there ss nothing new but what 
 has been forgotten. Traces of it are to be found almost 
 as far back as authentic history extends, and even allusions 
 to methods which bear a strong resemblance to those of 
 modern times.”—H. ADDINGTON Bruce. 
 
 therefore by inference Mrs. Eddy) in the place in 
 
 which he belongs. ‘The place is that of the primi- 
 tive healer who was priest, magician and physician in 
 one. According to Cutten, mental healing can be 
 traced back three thousand years.* Hence Quimby’s 
 system was little but a recrudescence of the past put in 
 more or less modern terms. So to examine his three- 
 fold role: He inveighed against the priests, but he made 
 constant use of the religion of his day, just as did the 
 contemporary spiritualistic healers. The letters ex- 
 changed with his patients are necessarily couched in | 
 Biblical language, for this was the generation of the 
 Restorationists, or those who believed in the return of 
 apostolic gifts, such as speaking with tongues and 
 divine healing. And as the Restorationists asserted the 
 perpetuity of miracles, so one of Quimby’s correspond- 
 ents rejoiced that The Age of Miracles had returned, 
 
 [' now remains to locate Quimby historically, (and 
 
 
 
 1G. B. Cutten, Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing, p. 
 4, 1911 
 
 41 
 
42 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 and one of his interpreters wrote that he ‘“‘ seemed to 
 reproduce the wonders of the Gospel history.” ? 
 
 Thus in his religious rdle Quimby was looked upon 
 as successfully practicing “‘ the apostolic mode of heal- 
 ing the sick without fee or reward.” This led him to 
 despise the country doctor with his shilling-a-mile visit. 
 So he inveighs against “‘ the wrongs inflicted upon his 
 patients by the medical faculty,” and succeeded in 
 gaining followers by his Jeremiads. “The people— 
 what they believe they will create,” he said. No state- 
 ment could be truer. As another contemporary testi- 
 fies, the growing distrust in the virtue of medicine led 
 the public to look upon Quimby as a true reformer. 
 But here, obviously, magic and mental medicine were 
 combined. According to the account of one patient 
 the new theory was that disease is but an invention of 
 mind, a penalty which is a result of our own belief, 
 because the mind, which is spiritual matter, is disturbed 
 by excitement, anger and the like.® 
 
 Priest, magician, and physician,—Quimby under- 
 took the triple rdle of the primitive medicine man, but 
 with certain qualifications due to the times. The nine- 
 teenth century has been called the age of science; at 
 any rate the mid-century was the period when, in 
 America, the demand for science had penetrated even 
 the backwoods. To gain popular approval, therefore, 
 Quimby, as early as 1850, called his system ‘‘ The 
 science”’;: ‘then .“ Science.’”’;; next, . by: 1861,» The 
 Science of Health,” and finally, by 1863, “ Christian 
 Science.” 
 
 The latter was a clever phrase. Called ‘‘ Christian,” 
 it appealed to the religionist, and the New Englander, 
 
 
 
 ?W. F. Evans, Mental Medicine, p. 210, 1872. 
 ® Quunby Manuscripts, p. 94 and passim. 
 
QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN 43 
 
 as Thomas Jefferson once remarked, was a “ church- 
 
 going animal.” Called “Science,” it appealed to the 
 growing naturalism, to the generation when The 
 Popular Science Monthly was founded and when the 
 lyceum lectures included even the followers of Herbert 
 Spencer and other agnostics.* Nevertheless, there re- 
 mained a latent conflict between science and religion. 
 This was astutely concealed by a theory that seemed 
 scientific but could be used in a supernatural way. 
 Refine matter enough and a breath will blow it away; 
 atomise body and it will become of such an attenuated 
 nature that the mind can project it as a mere thought. 
 My spiritual senses, explains Quimby, could be affected 
 many miles from the patent: 8 = 
 
 So under the ‘‘ new ” metaphysics there is presented 
 the whole programme of occultism from amulets to 
 exorcisms. As one patient declared, Quimby did not 
 give “the infinitesimal atoms of homeopathy,” but he 
 did utilise their formule to bolster up his theory of 
 mind as spiritualised matter. Quimby now becomes 
 the medicine-man with his magic. ‘To the latter, as 
 Neuburger says, belongs the amulet, transference of 
 diseases, spells, exorcisms, driving out of demons and 
 symbolic ritual, combined with the administration of 
 medicinal drinks or with rational therapeutic exercises 
 such as massage, baths, and dietetic treatment.® 
 
 Such was the primitive medicine and such was 
 Quimbyism. One patient keeps Quimby’s picture 
 before her and derives benefit from gazing at it. This 
 is the belief in the amulet as is the possession of the 
 
 
 
 “Cf. John Fiske, Edward Livingston Youmans, Interpreter of 
 Science for the People, chaps. 5, 7, 14, 1894. 
 
 * Quimby Manuscripts, p. 247. 
 *Neuburger, History of Medicine, 1.7, 1910. 
 
44 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Eddy souvenir spoon and the use of a volume of 
 Science and Health by Christian Scientists as a pro- 
 tection against railroad and motor car accidents. As 
 for the transference of disease, Quimby himself com- 
 plains of becoming identified with the sufferings of his 
 patients. ‘‘ When I sit by a patient their feelings affect 
 me,” he declares.‘ This was exactly what happened to 
 Mrs. Eddy when later she urged the suffering not to 
 send their thoughts her way and was obliged to give 
 notice that she received no patients, a notice repeated 
 in successive editions of Science and Health. As she 
 complained to a cousin: “ I feel the weight of sick folks 
 terribly since my book is at work.” ® 
 
 As for spells and exorcisms, Quimby compares dis- 
 eases to evil spirits which people are afraid of and thus 
 ‘“‘ make it necessary for them to have help in driving 
 off their enemies.” Thus he explains consumption as 
 possessing ‘‘ an identity, life, or a kind of knowledge. 
 
 . Now for people who admit the existence and 
 superiority of their enemy or disease to commence 
 making war with him by calomel, blistering or burning, 
 only enrages the enemy. So the way to cure the sick 
 is to ‘‘ face the error and argue it down. ... It re- 
 quires great shrewdness to get the better of the error; 
 for disease is the work of the devil or error.” 
 
 And so, adds the medicine man of Maine, “I take 
 the symptoms and know who is the devil. I expose 
 him and when I make the patient know him the devil 
 leaves, the error is cast out, the belief leaves and the 
 patient is cured.” °® All this may be compared with 
 Mrs. Eddy’s Wentworth Manuscript, already partially 
 
 
 
 "Quimby Manuscripts, pp. 211, 212, 174, 
 ® Letter quoted in The New York ‘American, Feb. 26, 1911. 
 ® Quimby Manuscripts, p. 280. 
 
QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN 45 
 
 ) quoted, which begins “ First the fever is to be argued ‘ 
 ; down,” and concludes, “ This belief is the red dragon, 
 ' the king of beasts.” 1° 
 : It is needless to say that we have here a kind of dis- 
 * guised demonology. It shows that in Quimby’s mind, 
 as in that of the primitive man, religion and thera- 
 peutics were inextricably woven.’' Nevertheless, as 
 intimated above, there may be combined with these 
 magic formule certain rational therapeutic measures. 
 In one letter Quimby actually advises setting-up exer- 
 cises “to relax the waist at the pit of the stomach, 
 taking away the pressure from the nerves and allaying 
 the irritation.” 7° But while Quimby gave a few prac- 
 tical hints like massaging the scalp for headache, these 
 were apparently considered mere sops to Cerberus, 
 mere accommodations to a perverse generation. They 
 are not valuable in themselves but only as aids to faith. 
 When Mrs. Eddy later charged that Quimby was a 
 mere animal magnetiser with all the strokes and passes 
 of Mesmer she contradicted her own testimonial of 
 1862 where she said that “‘ My operator believed in 
 disease independent of the mind; hence, I could not be 
 wiser than my teacher.” ** 
 ' Now what is the “ great principle” which underlies 
 Dr. Quimby’s faith and works. His system was 
 magical mental medicine. As mental medicine it con- 
 tained the truths and values of suggestive therapeutics; 
 such as the toning up of the system and the cure of 
 certain functional diseases. But as magical it de- 
 manded a peculiar theory to bolster it up. That theory 
 
 
 
 7 Milmine, p. 131. 
 ign Oy Cutten, poi2i. 
 2 Ouimby Manuscripts, p 
 en sen Be: Patterson GBay) in The Portland Evening Courter, 
 OV 186 
 
46 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 was that mind was an attenuated form of matter and 
 that matter was capable of refinement into a spiritual 
 body. This naturally led to the whole gamut of occult 
 phenomena from apparitions to thought transference. 
 This ‘‘ new ” principle was called ‘“‘ metaphysics,” but 
 
 _ it was not new metaphysics. Primitive man’s shadow, 
 
 STs tre Pr 
 
 his dream, his hallucination of self, all point to the 
 double of his body, and none of these are bodiless. So 
 with Quimby. In 1861 he defined mind as spiritual 
 matter and body as nothing but a “ dense shadow con- 
 densed into what is called matter.” But of matter he 
 said: “‘ It is only an idea that can be formed into any 
 shape.” 
 
 Quimby essays the solution of the problem of mind 
 and body and only half succeeds. Instead of saying 
 boldly that man is homogeneous, he says, in so many 
 words, that he is heterogeneous, consisting of two dis- 
 tinct selves. In one of his early writings he contends 
 that “ there is a principle or inward man that governs 
 the outward man or body, and when these are at vari- 
 ance or out of tune, disease is the effect, while by har- 
 monising them health of the body is the result.” 14 
 With this kind of disguised dualism logical trouble is 
 bound to ensue. Like the farce of Box and Cox, it is 
 hard to know which party occupies the apartment of 
 the self. One anxious inquirer asked Quimby whether 
 this belief (in the “ new ” principle) ‘“‘ does not make 
 man entirely superior to circumstances, and also make 
 everything an idea without substance and so take away 
 the reality of existence? ” 
 
 Quimby is so hard put to it in answering this and a 
 kindred puzzle that he has to revive an ancient Chris- 
 
 
 
 4 Quimby Manuscripts, p. 69. 
 
QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN A? 
 
 tian heresy to escape from his dilemma. When a per- 
 sistent questioner demands: ‘‘ What became of the 
 body of Jesus after it was laid in the ground, if you do 
 not believe it rose?” the answer was: “ Jesus is the 
 idea ‘‘ matter,”’ so those that believed that Jesus Christ 
 was one believed that His body and soul were crucified. 
 Now came their doubts whether this same idea should 
 rise again. Some believed it would, others doubted. 
 So far as Christ was concerned, all their opinions had 
 no effect. Christ was the Wisdom that knew matter 
 was only an idea that could be formed into any shape, 
 and the life that moved it came not from it, but was 
 outside of it.” * 
 
 Historically this was an aberrant doctrine of a third 
 century sect, the Gnostics, and was propounded in the 
 apocryphal Gospel according to St. Peter. Yet Quim- 
 by’s sources here were presumably not historical, but 
 due to circumstances. Nevertheless his valiant at- 
 tempts to harmonise mind and matter are in vain; he 
 oscillates between the two, and as Box and Cox did not 
 look well in one another’s clothes, so is it here. To 
 borrow material terms and apply them to the spiritual 
 results in such absurd statements as that ‘“‘ mind has 
 weight; the truth opens the pores; memory is one of 
 the chemical changes; bronchitis is a belief that sets 
 hard upon the stomach.” 
 
 Mixed notions lead to mixed metaphors, and when 
 the Quimbyites reply that such statements are figura- 
 tive, being merely accommodations to mortal mind, we 
 can take the other side and show that defining matter 
 in terms of spirit will lead to something worse, and that 
 is logical nihilism. When mind is defined as spiritual 
 
 
 
 * Ibid., p. 176. 
 
48 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 matter, and matter as shadow, it follows that matter is 
 but a spiritual shadow and that nothing is certain. 
 Philosophically this is pure phenomenalism and turns 
 the world into an illusion. Practically it resolves itself 
 into the final dictum of Quimby’s chief work, namely, 
 that “ natural man is nothing but an idea which Science 
 uses to illustrate some fact or problem that is for the 
 development of Science.” *° 
 
 An added word of explanation is called for. The 
 reader needs to know the familiar occult method of 
 double interpretation in order to understand what this 
 is all about. By “ Science ” is meant Quimby’s “ scien- 
 tific man,” and by the “ scientific man” the spiritual 
 self. Science to the ordinary reader—and let us hope 
 that he is still sane in spite of reading thus far—science 
 means natural science. But Quimby, by a curious in- 
 version, makes science mean “ spiritual ”’ science and, 
 by a kind of speculative shorthand, uses it to stand for 
 the “spiritual”? man. In plain English, if the thing 
 can be made plain, there is a dualism between the 
 natural man and the “ scientific man.” To reconcile 
 the two a compromise has to be made. The compro- 
 mise may be fatal to the party of the first part, but that 
 does not matter. For the sake of getting the contrast 
 clearly before his pupils Quimby ends his chief manu- 
 script, Christ or Science, in this fashion: 
 
 “The natural man is made of flesh and blood; Science 
 is not. Man has life; Science is life. Man has sight; 
 Science is sight. Man has feeling; Science is feeling. 
 Man has all of the five senses; Science is all of the five 
 senses. Man of himself cannot do anything; Science can 
 do all things. Man is of matter; Science is not. ‘Then, 
 
 
 
 7° Ibid., p. 229. 
 
QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN 49 
 
 what is man, independent of Science? Nothing but an 
 idea of life and death. Then where does he differ from 
 the brute, where does Science make the distinction? It 
 makes no distinction. Who does? ‘The first cause, or 
 God. How? In attaching Science to the identity called 
 man, ‘Then, does Science have an identity? Yes. What 
 is it? Wisdom, or God. When you give it all its quali- 
 ties, what kind of person is it? It is the Scientific man, 
 not of flesh and blood, but of that world where error 
 never comes. It speaks through man. What does? Its 
 life, or the wisdom of God. How does it get its food? 
 By the sweat of its brow, or the development of itself. 
 Where does it differ from the natural man? In every- 
 thing. Show, by illustration. The natural man is nothing 
 but an idea which Science uses to illustrate some fact or 
 problem that is for the development of Science.” 1” 
 
 All this has a strangely familiar sound. It is the 
 original draught of the Christian Science formula for a 
 ‘“‘ demonstration ” or treatment of the sick. As Mrs. 
 Eddy wrote it out in her chapter entitled Recapitula- 
 tion, which was taken from her first class-book, that 
 formula runs as follows: 
 
 “ Question : ‘ What is the Scientific statement of being?’ 
 Answer: ‘ There is no life, substance, or intelligence in 
 matter ; all is mind; there is no matter. Spirit is immortal 
 truth, matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and 
 eternal, matter the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, 
 and man is His image and likeness ; hence, man is spiritual 
 and not material.’ ” 18 
 
 But this is putting the cart before the horse. The 
 
 
 
 ™ Quimby Manuscripts, pp. 228-229. 
 
 *% This class-book is entitled The Science of Man by which the 
 Sick are Healed, embracing Questions and Answers in Moral 
 Science arranged for the Learner.’ (Copyright, 1870.) 
 
50 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Eddyite healing formula represents the last fruits of 
 Quimby’s teachings. Prior to Quimby’s ‘‘ emergence 
 into light ” there had been preliminary stages, a welter 
 of notions into which Mrs. Eddy stepped when she first 
 met the Portland healer and which made her an easy 
 believer because these notions were more or less in the 
 air. Her early letters contain phrases peculiar to 
 Quimby such as “ angel visits’ and “ omnipresence.” 
 Her later description of her “ cure” is couched in the 
 very language of the letters Quimby wrote to his 
 patients. After a fall on the icy sidewalk she de- 
 scribes ‘“‘the nervous heat” which her friends are 
 forming about her and the terrible spinal affection from 
 which she has suffered so long and hopelessly.*® 
 
 All this sounds perfectly incomprehensible. Never- 
 theless, it can be understood. These phrases are part 
 and parcel of the strange system which Quimby had 
 been working out for twenty-five years. To this system 
 we turn in our next chapter. 
 
 
 
 * Quimby Manuscripts, p. 163. 
 
V 
 QUIMBY, THE OCCULTIST 
 
 “The discussion of so-called Christian Science as a 
 religion 1s best left to theologians. As a therapeutic 
 method it concerns not only medical practitioners, but 
 every rational human beg. Undeniably the treatment is 
 one of suggestion, and, speaking more specifically, of sug- 
 gestion by the induction of the negative hallucination. 
 The rise and spread of the cult, while remarkable, is, how- 
 ever, far from being a phenomenon unparalleled in history. 
 
 “ Leaders of such movements not infrequently present 
 striking instances of the force and power of persons who, 
 developing mystic ideas in early life, conceive, and finally 
 firmly believe, that they are endowed with a special mis- 
 sion for the reformation of the world, and have thus been 
 stimulated to exert themselves with remarkable persistence 
 and energy. They are often undeniably great in the scope 
 of thewr delusions and the force and persistence with which 
 they promulgate them—and what shall we say of their 
 followers? The latter are merely examples of the spread 
 of a delusion, a true folie communiquée.”—F. X. DERCUM. 
 
 UIMBY’S system, in brief, consisted of four 
 () powers, three principles, and two planes or 
 levels of thought. As to the first the human 
 spirit is claimed to possess powers or senses which 
 function independently of matter. These “ spiritual 
 senses ” are: clairvoyance; detecting odours or atmos- 
 pheres at a distance; reading another’s mind; and the 
 ability to ‘travel in spirit, making oneself both felt 
 and seen—if the recipient of such a visit be himself 
 clairvoyant.” ; 
 51 
 
52 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Again under the need of a higher “ genuinely spirit- 
 ual” psychology, Quimby’s Science of Health pro-" 
 pounded three principles. These are “the human 
 spirit with its higher senses; the idea of the Divine 
 presence as guiding wisdom and healing power; the 
 identification of this wisdom with the Christ in terms 
 of a demonstrable Science which all might understand.” 
 These principles, when further considered, disclose a 
 dualism or what might be called in the language of the 
 Spiritualists two planes or levels. The one is the world 
 of opinion where there is “a mind to mind projection 
 of human thought,” the other is the world of Science 
 where reigns “‘ the Divine Presence as Love.” The 
 two planes are merely those common among the spirit- 
 ualists, namely, the plane of ordinary life and the 
 “‘ superior ”’ plane where there is a supernal communi- 
 cation between spirits. 
 
 The source of this system, though complicated, is not 
 far to seek. Clairvoyance and mind-reading formed 
 the stock-in-trade of the mesmerists or animal magnet- 
 isers. Odours or atmospheres, together with the ability 
 to ‘‘ travel in spirit,’ were variations on the material- 
 isations of the spiritualists. Of course the Quimbyites 
 will deny this and base their denial on the Master’s own 
 words. In the early forties Quimby travelled about as 
 a public exhibitor of mesmerism, but, by 1847, he de- 
 clared that magnetic healing was a humbug. He also 
 frequently denounced the ‘“ Rochester rappings ” of 
 the Fox sisters. But what he says about ‘“ shadows ” 
 is more than a shadow of spiritualism. In 1860 he 
 writes to a suffering patient: 
 
 “You are as plain before my eyes as you were when I 
 was talking to the shadow in Portland. For the shadow 
 
QUIMBY, THE OCCULTIST 53 
 
 came with the substance, and that which I am talking to 
 now is the substance. If I make an impression on it, it 
 may throw forth a shadow of a young lady upright with- 
 out that ‘ gone place’ at the pit of the stomach.” * 
 
 This grotesque doctrine is akin to the ghostly double 
 of primitive man. But in Quimby’s case there is an 
 attempt to make it seem modern and to give it the 
 sanctity of religion. ‘‘ Eternal wisdom,” continues the 
 Portland healer, ‘“‘ teaches us that all matter is in itself 
 a shadow and is no barrier.’”’? This sounds like an ap- 
 proach to high idealism. It is quite the contrary, for 
 the doctrine smells to heaven. As the Portland philos- 
 opher explains: 
 
 “ Now, if I am here sitting and talking with you I must ~ 
 leave the earth and matter and come to you. If Iam with 
 you, what is it that has left the body? It cannot be mat- 
 ter in a visible form, yet it is something. Listen, and I 
 will tell you. . . . As all matter decomposes, the dust or 
 odour that arises from it was the matter that [the natural 
 man] was formed of.” ? 
 
 Matter, then, is a shadow, and the shadow an odour. 
 If, therefore, the shadow be projected, the odour or 
 atmosphere can be detected. But Quimby had just 
 said that the substance can “ throw forth a shadow,” 
 hence the proposition is true. All this seems mere rea- 
 soning inacircle. So do the arguments for the remain- 
 ing “‘ spiritual senses,” namely, reading another’s mind, 
 the ability to travel in spirit, and making oneself both 
 felt and seen—“ if the recipient of such a visit be him- 
 self clairvoyant.” But assuming that the substance as 
 
 
 
 Quimby Manuscripts, p. 134. 
 ? [bid., p. 137. 
 
54 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 shadow can be projected, both mind-reading and omni- 
 presence follow. Nevertheless, Quimby’s theory is not 
 so important as the practice. The power of projection 
 is turned to the uses of healing, first as diagnosis of 
 diseases, and second as absent treatment. In his 
 tractate entitled, The World of the Senses, Quimby 
 puts this matter very boldly: 
 
 “When philosophers say that matter is not under the 
 control of the mind,” he says, “this is wrong. . . . The 
 natural man being only an idea like a shadow, after this 
 shadow goes through a certain change like any other mat- 
 ter it is in a state to be a medium of a higher power... . - 
 Take a person with consumption. The idea consumption 
 decomposes and throws off an odour that contains all the 
 ideas of the person affected. . . . Now, I have found by 
 twenty years’ experience that these odours affect me, and 
 also that they contain the identity of the patient whom 
 this odour surrounds. ‘This called my attention to it, and 
 I have found that it was as easy to tell the feelings or 
 thought of the person sick as to detect the odour of spirits 
 from that of tobacco. I at first thought I inhaled it, but 
 at last found that my spiritual sense could be affected by 
 it when my body was at a distance of many miles from the 
 patient. ‘This led to a new discovery, and I found my 
 senses were not in my body, but that my body was in 
 my senses. ... This knowledge put in practice is the 
 Science of Health and is for the benefit of the sick and 
 suffering.” ? 
 
 All this at once suggests what Mrs. Eddy claimed as 
 her “ precious discovery,” Science and Health with its 
 “‘ spiritual senses sharper than the material,” with its 
 absent treatment, and with its purpose to find suffering 
 
 
 
 *Ibid., pp. 235-249, 
 
QUIMBY, THE OCCULTIST 55 
 
 and relieve it. But our present task is to estimate the 
 antecedents of Quimby’s creed. It is not necessary to 
 go back to primitive man’s belief in ghosts as real enti- 
 ties, nor to medieval sympathetic medicine, where 
 there was thought to be an occult relationship between 
 disease and remedy, such as that between liver com- 
 plaint and liver-wort. The sources lie nearer in the 
 theories and practices of the day. Just as the spirit- 
 ualists materialised the dead, Quimby materialised 
 disease; just as the animal magnetisers projected 
 thoughts, Quimby projected feelings. Just as the 
 homeopathists attenuated drugs into their highly di- 
 luted remedies, Quimby attenuated the material into 
 the spiritual. To him the chief proof is that it is a 
 good rule which works both ways. He declares that 
 “‘mind is matter held in solution, which the power of 
 Wisdom can condense into a solid so dense as to be- 
 ‘come the substance called ‘‘ matter.” Assume this 
 theory and then you can see how man can become sick 
 and get well by a change of mind.” * 
 
 Assuming that this theory will work, let us see what 
 the Portland practitioner makes of it. A modern 
 psycho-therapeutist is familiar with the so-called sym- 
 pathetic transfer of symptoms between two persons. 
 But he does not refer this to telepathy or to any mys- 
 terious medium, but to actual sound or sight; that is, 
 to verbal suggestion or the imitation of the other 
 patient’s grimaces and groans. There is no vacuum 
 between the two subjects but an actual transfer by 
 means of words, sounds, pressures and the like. It is 
 not so with an occultist like Quimby. He was no doubt 
 a healer who was sympathetic in the ordinary meaning 
 
 
 
 “Quimby Manuscripts, p. 234. 
 
56 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 of the word. Nevertheless, he needs an extraordinary 
 theory to account for that fact. A few sentences from 
 his World of the Senses will explain his notions: 
 
 “You feel a pain, I also feel it,” he declares. “ Now, 
 the sympathy of our minds mingling is spiritual matter. 
 But there is no wisdom in it, for wisdom is outside of 
 matter. If we both feel the same pain, we each call it our 
 own; for we are devoid of that wisdom which would 
 make us know we were affecting each other. Each one 
 has his own identity and wants sympathy, and the igno- 
 rance of each is the vacuum that is between us. So we 
 are drawn together by this invisible action called sympa- 
 thy. Now, make man wise enough to know that he can 
 feel the pains of another, and then you get him outside of 
 matter.” ® 
 
 Enough of Quimby’s four powers; now for his three 
 principles. The latter follow directly from the former, 
 but to them is added a religious tinge. There is as- 
 sumed not only the human spirit with its higher senses, 
 but “the idea of a divine presence as guiding wisdom 
 and human power and the identification of this wisdom 
 with the Christ in terms of a demonstrable science 
 which all might understand.” 
 
 Leaving aside these religious implications for the 
 present, the rest of Quimbyism resolves itself into the 
 “human spirit with its higher senses, including the 
 mind projection of human thought.” These turn out to 
 be nothing but the “ higher phenomena ” of the early 
 magnetisers. Here a comparison may be made and the 
 comparison is close. Quimby defined these spiritual 
 senses as clairvoyance, detecting odours from disease 
 at a distance, reading another’s mind, and ability to 
 
 
 
 ° Ibid., p. 245. 
 
QUIMBY, THE OCCULTIST 57 
 
 travel in spirit. Now for the comparison. The mag- 
 netiser’s of the forties describe their higher phenomena 
 as clairvoyance at close quarters, or seeing without 
 eyes; clairvoyance at a distance, including transference 
 of sensations; and travelling clairvoyance. Such were 
 their three phenomena fondly believed to be facts. 
 The three theories made up to suit these phenomena 
 were, first, for clairvoyance or vision through opaque 
 bodies, the all penetrating action of the hypothetical 
 magnetic fluid; next, for transference of sensation, the 
 concentration of nerve force; and, lastly for travel- 
 ling clairvoyance, the action of the soul apart from 
 the body.® 
 
 In these descriptions two main factors are observ- 
 able. They are based on the old fluidic theory of 
 Mesmer and reinforced by the doctrine of the spiritual- 
 ists. Now Mesmerism was brought to America by the 
 French magnetiser, Charles Poyen, and was taken up 
 in New England by a Dr. Collyer, who lectured in 
 Quimby’s home town, Belfast, in 1838.‘ Furthermore 
 spiritualism, or more properly spiritism, was a revival 
 of primitive beliefs by that precious pair, the Fox sis- 
 ters, who began their toe-cracking, “‘ Rochester rap- 
 pings,” in 1848. 
 
 Against this resolution of the Quimby system into 
 its historic constituents the Quimbyites, of course, 
 would protest. The Portland healer, they claim, out- 
 grew mesmerism and repudiated spiritualism.’ But in 
 
 
 
 ®Frank Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science, p. 145, 
 Philadelphia, 1909. 
 
 7H. W. Dresser, A History of the New rhought Movement, 
 p. 29, 1919. 
 
 ® Compare Quimby’s letter to a clergyman where he ascribes his 
 cures, not to his spiritual influence, but to “ Wisdom that is above 
 man.’ Manuscripts, p. 144. 
 
58 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 his World of the Senses Quimby claims that the denial 
 of the phenomenon of mesmerism is futile. A mesmer- 
 ised person, he explains, is all that any person can be 
 in a waking state, and at the same time he is another 
 person separate from his earthly identity. This, he 
 adds, is the mystery or power that has troubled the 
 wisdom of this world to solve, but one can understand 
 the phenomenon by going back to the First Cause and 
 seeing what man is.? Quimby now propounds a crude 
 theory, even cruder than the old fluidic theory. It is 
 that “‘ the sense of smell is the foundation of language, 
 and since man invented language it was to convey his 
 thoughts by means of odours. . . . Now, if you will 
 admit that mind is spiritual matter, then the world of 
 matter is based on opinions, whereas the wisdom of 
 Science is of God. . . . Now, the scientific man sees 
 through matter and to be in the scientific world is to 
 enter the world where wisdom sees through matter. 
 This is the condition of those who are thrown into the 
 clairvoyant state.” 7° 
 
 In its last issue Quimbyism reduces itself to a form 
 of philosophic sensationalism and that based on the 
 lowest of the senses. Yet in 1860 he had the boldness 
 to claim that the ‘“ Science that he tried to practice is 
 the science that was taught eighteen hundred years ago 
 and has never had a place in the heart of man since.” #4 
 
 
 
 °Tbid., pp. 253-254, 
 2 Tbid., pp. 239-255. 
 4 Tbid., p. 144, 
 
VI 
 QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 
 
 “Twenty centuries of progress in the training of 
 thought and in the discernment of nature’s processes have 
 not been sufficient to free mankind of the idea that the 
 omnipotence of God must disclose itself, as well as in 
 many other ways, by a constant regulation of the functtons 
 of the human body én health and disease. And whenever 
 we find the idea firmly implanted we also find the. out- 
 cropping of superstition, with the wonder cures dependent 
 on tt.’—GrorcE W, JACOBY. 
 
 N an illuminating volume entitled The Relation of 
 Medicine to Philosophy (London, 1909), R. C. 
 Moon has the following: 
 
 “‘ This fond belief appealed powerfully to the popular 
 uneducated mind, ever ready to believe in the fanciful 
 and marvellous, especially in the realm of medicine, 
 and which, clouded and trammelled by the world of the 
 senses, is unable to travel out of the sphere of time and 
 space to the region of Noumenal Being, in which the 
 true mystic lives and moves, but with a certain intel- 
 lectual coarseness accepts ideas as spiritual which are > 
 really only a refined form of materialism.” 
 
 This passage leads us to consider that if Quimby’s 
 theory was strange, his practice was stranger. Hark- 
 ing back to some mesmeric experiments made upon his 
 “ sensitive ”’ Lucius in 1842, Quimby states that he 
 could create the odour of any kind of fruit and make 
 the mesmerised person taste and smell it. But that was 
 
 59 
 
60 ‘THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 not all. To every disease there is said to be an odour 
 and every one is affected by it when it comes within his 
 consciousness. Everyone, he argues, knows that he 
 can produce in himself heat or cold by excitement. So 
 likewise he can produce the odour of any disease so 
 that he is affected by it." What follows from all this? 
 Quimby answers: “ The effect upon mind and the pos- 
 sibility of the transference of symptoms and the cure 
 of disease.”’ As well as one can understand it, the links 
 in the Quimbyite chain of reasoning are as follows: 
 The mind as spiritual matter can generate diseases 
 which have their specific odours. But if no name is 
 given to these odours, with their accompanying sensa- 
 tions, there is no disease. 
 
 Such statements seem perfectly incredible, but 
 Quimby gives two instances under two captions, the 
 one entitled The Effect of Mind Upon Mind, and the 
 other Two Sciences. Here are some extracts: 
 
 “A woman brought her little son, about five years old, 
 to be treated by me. When I sat with the child I found 
 his symptoms were similiar (sic) to those which people 
 have in spinal or rheumatic troubles. . . . I found that 
 the mother had precisely the same feelings as the child, 
 yet she complained of disease which the child never 
 thought of, and, furthermore, she had not the least idea 
 the child had such feeling. . . . If she had been ignorant 
 as the child of names, she would not have had the fear of 
 these false ideas, and the child would have been well; for 
 all its trouble came from its mother, and her trouble was 
 from the invention of the medical faculty. 
 
 “ _.. There are two sciences, one of this world, and 
 the other of a spiritual world, or two effects produced 
 upon the mind or matter by two directions. The wisdom 
 
 
 
 Quimby Manuscripts, p. 258. 
 
QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 61 
 
 of this world acts in this way: It puts its own construction 
 on all sensations produced in the mind, and establishes its 
 knowledge after the effect is produced. For instance, a 
 child feels a pain in its head, the child has no idea what 
 it is, and if the mother is as ignorant of its origin as the 
 child no effect of any moment is produced. But the 
 wisdom of the world arrives in the form of a lady. She 
 hears the account of the pain from the mother, and assum- 
 ing a wise look gives her opinion in regard to the trouble, 
 and says the child is threatened with dropsy of the brain, 
 because she shows the same symptoms of another child 
 who died of that disease.” ? . 
 
 In arguing that Mrs. Eddy borrowed from the Port- 
 land healer the Quimbyites have loosed a boomerang 
 
 which returns upon themselves. The most exagger-"| 
 
 ated claims of the value of the Eddyite treatment are 
 no greater than those of Quimby himself. To diagnose 
 by intuition, to cure by the power of thought, were 
 commonplaces among the spiritists of the day. But to 
 claim that naming a disease is causing a disease, and 
 that if a child and its mother did not know the name 
 of dropsy, for example, it would not exist,—for pro- 
 mulgating that peculiar doctrine Quimby himself is 
 
 responsible. He handed on that doctrine to Mrs. Eddy | 
 
 and she made profitable use of it, teaching that a child’s 
 pain is nothing but an error of its little mortal mind, or 
 a suggestion of a parent, or a false doctrine, or a spe- 
 cies of crowd psychosis—mere public belief in the 
 existence of various diseases, called asthma and bron- 
 chitis, consumption and dropsy. and so on through the 
 alphabet. 
 
 But was Quimby the “ een humbug ” that he 
 elsewhere says the medical faculty called him? If the 
 
 
 
 — * Quimby Manuscripts, pp. 197, 258. 
 
62 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 two cases he cites were common cases, he must have 
 been responsible for a perfect slaughter of innocents. 
 Suppose the child with “ nominal ” dropsy did not get 
 well, what then? No room is given in Quimbyism for 
 a distinction between subjective symptoms and real 
 symptoms. However, it is time to leave this quin- 
 tessence of cruelty to children as the quintessence of 
 absurdity. A metaphysics based on the lowest of the 
 five senses is strange metaphysics, but it becomes even 
 stranger. Disease is considered by the Portland prac- 
 titioner to be not merely an error of mind, a false 
 belief due to a deranged state of mind, but a thing in 
 itself, an “‘ identity of evil import.” For instance, take 
 consumption. 
 
 “People are not aware,” says Quimby, “that con- 
 sumption has an identity, as much as a serpent or canker- 
 worm, that it has life or a sort of knowledge. It is liable 
 to get hold of us, and if it does we cannot shake it off, as 
 Paul did the viper, from his hand. All diseases have an 
 identity and the well are likely to be deceived. But these 
 diseases are in the mind as much as ghosts, witchcraft, or 
 evil spirits, and the fruits of this belief are seen in almost 
 every person. These beliefs show what the people are 
 afraid of, and what they have to contend with, and make 
 it necessary for them to have help in driving off their 
 enemies. For if a person cannot conquer his enemy or 
 disease himself, he must have help. Now, the people 
 involved admit the existence and superiority of their 
 enemy or disease, and commence making war with him 
 by first firing calomel, and if that does not start him, the 
 next is blistering, or burning. This only enrages the 
 enemy, and a regular battle commences. Finally, a coun- 
 cil of physicians is called, a suspension of arms takes 
 place, a compromise is made, health yields up all claims 
 to happiness and enjoyment, and the victim has the privi- 
 
QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 63 
 
 lege of going about a cripple and an outcast the balance 
 of his natural life, knowing all the time that he is liable 
 to be caught by any of his enemies, at any time, either 
 asleep or awake. This keeps him in a nervous state of 
 mind, not fit for any business, like a man who is in 
 prison, under sentence of death. This is the state of 
 this world.” 
 
 These documents exhibit Quimby in his true light. 
 He attacks the man of medicine, he is himself a medi- 
 cine man. Now the latter is described by Herbert 
 Spencer as physician, exorciser, priest, who believes 
 that accidents, misfortunes, diseases, deaths, perpet- 
 ually suggest the agency of malevolent spirits and the 
 need for combating them.* But, as Spencer adds, a 
 satisfactory distinction between priests and medicine 
 men is difficult to find. The same holds true of 
 Quimby. As a philosophy his system is as aboriginal 
 as that of the North American witch doctor who 
 smelled out his victims, but as a religious proposition 
 the system is apparently more modern. It implies 
 “the divine presence as guiding wisdom and healing, 
 identities this wisdom with the Christ and rises to the 
 plane of the Divine Presence as Love.” 
 
 Into these claims we need not enter here. How to 
 reconcile a philosophy of smells with a religion of love 
 was left to Mrs. Eddy, who, between 1870 and 1883, 
 passed from the “ chemicalisation of thought ” and the 
 “principle which controls matter” to an epoch when 
 “angels with overtures announce their principle and 
 idea.” > Nevertheless, attached to Quimby’s system, 
 which included belief in disease as “a chemical change 
 
 
 
 ® Quimby Manuscripts, p. 212. (March, 1860.) 
 4 Principles of Sociology, Part II, Chap. 6, New York, 1892. 
 ® Miscellaneous Writings, p. 76. 
 
64 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 in the mind ” and belief in the congestion of the lungs 
 as ‘‘a deposit of matter,” there are certain aberrant 
 religious doctrines which demand attention. Foremost 
 is the emphasis upon the feminine principle, since this 
 prepares the way for Mary Baker Eddy and her an- 
 nouncement that truth was to come “ through the per- 
 son of a New England girl.” 
 
 Now, Quimby was the inadvertent forerunner for the 
 religious matriarchy of ‘“ Mother” Eddy and the 
 “Mother ” church. How he came to emphasise the 
 feminine in his philosophy is most curious. As a mes- 
 merist he found women more “ sensitive” than men. 
 So he declared that “‘ women are more spiritual than 
 men.” This major premise has as its minor that 
 “woman is the spiritual rib of man,” and as its con- 
 clusion that “‘ woman’s true position is as a teacher of 
 the Science of Health and Happiness.” ® These points 
 we have already noticed. What is their source? It is 
 hard to say, but it is a significant fact that in Quimby’s 
 day and generation the doctrine of the feminine prin- 
 ciple of deity was in the air. Mother Ann Lee taught 
 it in the adjoining state of New Hampshire in the very 
 town where Mary Baker once lived. So did Andrew 
 Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer, in his Sacred 
 Gospels of Arabula. This “‘ Arabula ” he defined as an 
 “intelligent Spiritual Presence . . . the private mani- 
 festation of the Father-and-Mother Spirit in each 
 human heart.” ‘ Likewise, Thomas Lake Harris, the 
 companion and disciple of Davis, in his peculiar work, 
 The Lord, and Two in One, speaks of one Father and 
 one Mother God and declares that “ before the Fall, 
 Man and Woman were conjoined in the likeness of God 
 
 
 
 °Quimby Manuscripts, pp. 231, 393, 395. 
 * Arabula, p. 69, New York, 1872 (first edition, 1867). 
 
QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 65 
 
 and at the Fall this bi-sexual unity was divided as in 
 the old Platonic myth.” ® 
 
 Now in all this Podmore points out certain parallels 
 with developed Eddyism. Such are the Christian 
 Science revisions of the Lord’s Prayer so that it reads, 
 “Our Father-Mother God,” and the general teaching 
 that God is more feminine than masculine. But Pod- 
 more does not call attention to Mrs. Eddy’s interpre- 
 tation of the separation of the two sexes and her actual 
 reference to Plato as the author.? Nor did he connect 
 Mrs. Eddy’s doctrine of spiritual marriage with that of 
 either Harris or Quimby. As the former explains: 
 “ Among my people, as they enter into the peculiar 
 physical evolution that constitutes the new life, two 
 things decrease—the propagation of the species and 
 physical death.” ‘This was written by Harris a num- 
 ber of years before the appearance of Science and 
 Health.*° But long before that date Quimby held simi- 
 lar notions. Between 1860 and 1865 he made these 
 statements: “‘ women are more spiritual than men; man 
 partakes more of the animal, woman more of the scien- 
 tific or spiritual element; as the soil of California is 
 rich enough to produce gold so the soul or life of the 
 female is rich enough to produce the wisdom of God, 
 and woman’s true position is as a teacher of the Science 
 of Health and Happiness.” 1 
 
 But enough of these curiosities of literature. 
 Quimby as discoverer, or rather rediscoverer, Quimby 
 
 
 
 ® Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science, p. 240. 
 
 °Compare. her testimonial to Quimby in The ‘Ac biond Evening 
 Courier for Nov. 7, 1862: “ When the school Platonic anatomised 
 the soul and divided it into halves, to be reunited by elementary 
 attractions.” 
 
 ? Podmore, op. cit., p. 241. Also nie Banaree of Christian 
 Science, ‘ “Contemporary Review,” Jan., 
 
 2 Ouimby Manuscripts, pp. Ah 235, 308, 
 
66 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 as medicine man, Quimby as occultist and as teacher of 
 the Science of Health, obviously prepared the way for 
 the so-called discoverer of Science and Health. Be- 
 tween the works countless parallels may be found. 
 There was, however, one difference, and that seemed to 
 Mrs. Eddy fundamental. It was to change a philos- 
 ophy based on a crude sensationalism into a philosophy 
 based on a pure immaterialism. As she put it in the 
 antiquated language of her day: ‘“‘ Ontology was that 
 part of our metaphysical system which first engaged 
 our attention.” * 
 
 In general this transformation was one from clair- 
 voyance as the penetrating action of an hypothetical 
 fluid, from chemicalisation or the throwing off of 
 odours and atmospheres, from daguerrotyping of dis- 
 eases upon the mind, to the postulate that spirit is the 
 only substance. In other words, the change is from 
 the magnetic fluid of Mesmer, from the humoural 
 philosophy of Martyn Paine, from the belief of Hahne- 
 mann that spiritual powers exist in drugs, to an at- 
 tempted immaterialism, a return to a stage prior to that 
 in which the soul had lapsed from pure intellect into 
 sense. In striving to make this transition Mrs. Eddy 
 naturally found great difficulty. It was like trying to 
 make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. She later con- 
 fessed to be overcome by the vastness and difficulty of 
 the task. How difficult it was is evident from her 
 crude attempt to express her meaning. ‘Thus in the 
 first chapter of the first edition of Science and Health 
 she defines immortal mind as “ the atmosphere of the 
 soul pervading all space,” and electricity as “not a 
 vital fluid, but an element of mind, the higher link 
 
 
 
 ™ Science and Health, (3rd ed.), I, 241. 
 
QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 67 
 
 between the grosser strata of mind, named matter, and 
 the more rarefied called mind.” To this is added the 
 confession that ‘‘ in these chemical changes we find it 
 not easy to overcome sin and sickness.” ** 
 
 These phrases are evident echoes of the Portland 
 healer. But just as the latter had helped Mrs. Eddy 
 out of her physical slough of despond, so it took an- 
 other hand to pull her out of her logical slough of 
 words. Eddyism has generally been considered a mere 
 speculative swamp, but there are a few paths through 
 it and one of these is pointed out by a strange guide. 
 lf the emergence into health was “‘ by the help of the 
 Lord, (Quimby)” the emergence into light was by the 
 help of an entirely different character, Bronson Alcott, 
 of Concord, Massachusetts. 
 
 
 
 9 [bid., pp. 23, 27, 46. 
 
VII 
 FROM MIND HEALING TO METAPHYSICS 
 
 “Great Thinker! Great Expecter! to converse with 
 whom was a New England Night’s Entertainment.” 
 — THOREAU ON ALCOTT. 
 
 , WfeT was Bronson Alcott, “ that undiscouraged patron 
 : | of metaphysical cults,” as Milmine puts it, who 
 went to Lynn upon an invitation to visit Mrs. 
 ' Glover (Eddy).* We know Alcott as a vegetarian and 
 visionary who lived on “ aspiring ” plants, like aspara- 
 gus, deplored the use of drugs, and sympathised with 
 
 any new system of healing the sick without medicine. © 
 
 He one time wrote to a friend, “ As a general state- 
 ment it holds that diseases of the body have their rise 
 in the soul.” * So, too, it was Alcott who founded that 
 strange philosophic colony of Fruitlands, and it was 
 under the pseudonym of Abel that he was described by 
 his exasperated daughter Louisa as a sower of tran- 
 scendental wild oats. 
 
 Now, one of these oats was Eddyism, for the meta- 
 physics of the two systems agree in essentials, and 
 especially in teaching that man’s origin is not due to an 
 ascent from the animals, but to a descent from the 
 angels. This evolution or Darwin theory is false, says 
 
 
 
 *Georgine Milmine, The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy, p. 160, 
 New York, 1909. 
 
 * Manuscript Letter, Dec. 12, 1876. For the use of this and 
 other quotations from the Diaries, Letters, and other Autobio- 
 graphical materials I have the kind permission of Mrs, F. Alcott 
 Pratt, of Concord, Mass. 
 
 68 
 
 an 
 
 Ser, 
 
FROM MIND HEALING TO METAPHYSICS 69 
 
 Mrs. Eddy, there is no life in matter.* If the reader 
 will take the official Concordance* to Science and 
 Health there may there be found such unusual philo- 
 sophic words as absorption, emanation, lapse,—ab- 
 sorption into deity, emanation from the divine mind, 
 lapse from harmony into darkness. 
 
 Where in heaven did these rare phrases come from? 
 The answer is obvious, if one follows the guiding thread 
 of resemblance. As the Portland healer had given Mrs. 
 Eddy her therapeutic hints, so the philosopher of Fruit- 
 lands gave her those “ inklings historic ” which enabled 
 her to emerge from the materialistic miasma into the 
 upper air of immaterialism. That matter is an illusion, ' 
 that body is an error of mortal mind, that the soul 
 though lapsed is an emanation of deity and so may be 
 reabsorbed into Principle—this peculiar system of 
 thought is no more “ hopelessly original” than was the 
 system of mental healing derived from Quimby. The 
 latter left a materialistic residue which must needs be 
 purified. This was more or less accomplished by means 
 of a fresh current which tended to aerate the older 
 doctrine. References to odours, vapours, and chemical 
 scums are often met with in Science and Health, but 
 the effort of the author is to get rid of such phrases and 
 to attain to pure transparency. 
 
 We propose later to compare in order the successive 
 chapters of the first edition of Science and Health and 
 the early writings of Alcott. But it is well to know 
 beforehand what manner of man it was who visited the 
 veiled prophetess of Lynn. The ascetic of Fruitlands 
 is described by his philosophic biographer, William T. 
 Harris, as “a theologic idealist intoxicated with the 
 
 
 
 ® Science and Health (1st ed.), p. 257 
 * FE. g. edition of 1914, for Science and Health of March, 1908, 
 
70 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 One. . . . Hence all his utterances have the form of 
 philosophemes, and he has furnished them of the best 
 quality both in prose and poetry. To match anything 
 from Hermes Trismegistus, or Pythagoras or the Chal- 
 dean Oracles, take some of his Orphic Sayings® 
 
 There are difficulties in this description because it 
 presents a most technical aspect of New England tran- 
 scendentalism. The Orphic Sayings we shall attempt 
 to clarify later. The philosophemes were those subtle 
 and suggestive utterances which Alcott sent to Harris 
 for the latter’s Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 
 Take, for instance, the following on Person: 
 
 “ ‘The lapsed Personality, or deuce human and divine, 
 has played the prime part in metaphysical theology of 
 times past, as it does still. But rarely has thought freed 
 itself from the notion of duplicity, triplicity, and grounded 
 its faith in the Idea of the One Personal Spirit, as in 
 Parmenides, Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus—the Greek 
 genius first mastering this problem of pure theism, and 
 planting therein a faith and cultus. If we claim more for 
 the Hebrew thought, as this rose to an intuition in the 
 mind of its inspired thinker, it passed away with him. 
 Since Christendom throughout is still mythologising, 
 rather than thinking about his mixed attributes; divided, 
 subdivided into sects, schools of doctrine; orthodox 
 Trinitarian, heterodox Arian, Socinian, Swedenborgian, 
 are all so immersed in their special individualism as to be 
 unable to rise to the comprehension of the Personal — 
 One.’.© 
 
 This is manifestly hard to understand, yet in it there 
 are phrases familiar to readers of Christian Science 
 
 
 
 °F. B. Sanborn and W. T. dite, A. Bronson Alcott, His Life 
 and Philosophy, 2.619, Boston, 1892 
 * Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2.49 (1868). 
 
FROM MIND HEALING TO METAPHYSICS 71 
 
 literature—such as lapsed personality, the idolatry of 
 the senses, the symbolism of pure thought. It is prob- 
 able that Mrs. Eddy never read the Journal of Specu- 
 lative Philosophy, published in St. Louis and meant for 
 the elect, although its volumes were on the shelves of 
 the Lynn Public Library, when she lived in that town. 
 But this same description of Person, except for the 
 references to the Greek philosophers and Christian 
 sects, appeared in Alcott’s Tablets, published in Boston 
 in 1868, just two years prior to Mrs. Eddy’s first copy- 
 righted work, The Science of Man, which is said to be 
 the basis of Science and Health. Alcott’s Tablets was 
 also on the shelves of the Lynn Library while Mrs. 
 Eddy was working up her divine metaphysics. 
 Between these two documents there is the kinship 
 of a common vocabulary, a similarity of words, phrases 
 and turns of thought which permeates not only this 
 early preliminary section, but every chapter of Science 
 and Health. To the objector who claims that Alcott 
 had no influence on Eddyism because the date of his 
 visit was shortly after the publication of Science and 
 Health, we ask—‘‘ What do you make of these re- 
 semblances? ”—Only two alternatives are possible— 
 either to consider Eddyism a “ first hand revelation ” 
 in which “ unfathomable mind has expressed itself ”’ as 
 Mrs. Eddy claims, or to consider it a mere crazy quilt, 
 made up of various shreds and patches gathered here > 
 and there. But even if it be the latter we can see in it 
 a recurrent pattern, the pattern of neo-platonism. 
 Take statements such as these—they may be peculiar 
 but they are consistent, being the component parts of 
 an antique system. Thus Plotinus, the arch neo- 
 platonist, of whom Alcott was the chief exponent in 
 New England, taught three fundamentals, namely that 
 
72 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 God is Spirit, the soul immortal, and matter illusion. 
 These things we have already examined as parts of 
 absolute Christian Science presented in the chapter, 
 Recapitulation. Now notice how that chapter further 
 repeats these themes: ‘‘ This Me (Jehovah) is Spirit. 
 . . . When all men are of one mind, man will present 
 the Substance of Spirit, and be pure and eternal... . 
 Matter is unreal; the Universe and man are shadow 
 and idea.” 
 
 We may now compare these statements of Eddyism 
 with those of neo-platonism. As a learned inter- 
 preter of that ancient doctrine expresses it, ‘‘ Plotinus 
 held that God is the foundation of all things, that He 
 is immortal and omnipresent, pure light, while matter 
 and form are illusions, shadows of the soul. God is 
 one and the basis of all thought. Mind is His image. 
 Soul is the product of mind’s action and produces other 
 actions, such as faith, aspiration, veneration, which rise 
 towards God; speculation, reasoning, sophistry, which 
 occupy themselves on a lower plane, and the still lower 
 qualities of mere physical life. Matter is formed by 
 the soul within it, for every form has its soul whether 
 apparently living or not. In all is divine life, in the 
 stars as on the earth. There is neither time nor space 
 in mind: it is the world of the Spirit, in which presides 
 a supreme Over-Soul and souls possessed of power to 
 think; these souls tend to the higher or to the lower 
 and alter accordingly. Those that tend to the higher 
 become purified and spiritualised. It is essential to 
 know so that one may attain, and he whose mind is 
 illumined sees the Highest, the Light which lightens the 
 world. To him it is given to become united with the 
 Supreme.” * 
 
 7A. M. Stoddard, The Life of Paracelsus, p. 240, London, 1911. 
 
FROM MIND HEALING TO METAPHYSICS 73 
 
 God as Spirit, the lapse of the immortal soul into 
 matter which is unreal—this is the quintessence both of 
 neo-platonism and of Eddyism. In withdrawing from 
 the world to ponder her mission to mankind, Mrs. Eddy 
 confessed that she was surprised at the vastness of her 
 subject. Well she might be. It was the problem of 
 evil she was trying to solve and as a professional opti- 
 mist she received the help of another of like mind. 
 
Vill 
 ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 
 
 | “Evil has no positive existence. It has usurped the 
 | positive place and being in the popular imagination and 
 by the imagination must be made to flee away into 
 ‘negative life. How shall this be done? By shadowing 
 forth in vivid colours the absolute beauty and phenomena 
 of good; by assuming evil not as positive but as negative; 
 the dark background and blot in the picture by contrast. 
 God alone is eternal good, eternal truth. Evil, like its 
 prototype darkness, is not a thing at all but the absence 
 of a thing.”’—ALcorTt. 
 
 “Tf evil is real, st is not temporal, for all that is real 
 ! proceedeth from God, and is eternal. But evil is illusion, 
 ‘an error; and Truth and error, like light and darkuess, 
 cannot dzwell together; when one appears the other dis- 
 appears. ‘God is too pure to behold iniquity’ To Truth 
 there is no error, all is Truth. To Spirit there is no mat- 
 ter, all és Principle and idea.”’—Mrs. Eppy. 
 
 WOULD ask anyone into whose hands this book 
 
 may come, to read the above two passages, and 
 
 then see if he can tell them apart? I think he 
 would admit that unless the names of the authors were 
 attached it would be hard to tell which was written by 
 which. Now, the reason that the parallel is so close is 
 that the problem is so difficult that Mrs. Eddy follows 
 the line of least resistance by copying almost literally 
 what Alcott had offered as a solution. 
 
 74 
 
ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 75 
 
 In making these comparisons we have that kind of 
 evidence which is demanded by what is known as the 
 higher criticism. It is internal evidence, or resem- 
 blance in ideas, and is corroborative of the external 
 evidence, which deals with the actual contact between 
 two thinkers. Even if the latter—the visit of Alcott 
 to Mrs. Eddy—were lacking, the evidence would be 
 strong, because the similarities are striking between the 
 leader of Christian Science and the leader of neo- 
 platonism. In the previous chapter we have given the 
 general resemblances, but beside these we shall make 
 a more particular comparison, and that is between 
 Alcott’s first philosophy in his strange Orphic Sayings 
 and the first chapter of the first edition of Science 
 and Health. 
 
 We have, then, a three-fold task: first, the external 
 evidence as to the fact and date of Alcott’s visit to Mrs. 
 Eddy and her little band at Lynn; next, the internal 
 _ evidence as to the general resemblances between the 
 two systems, and, lastly, the particular parallels in 
 thought and word in the successive chapters in the 
 “‘ divine text-book.” 
 
 We shall give the external evidence shortly. Mean- 
 while, it is in order to present our general line of argu- 
 ment. As I have elsewhere said, the problem is to 
 account for a system. The assumption is that no sys- 
 tem is made out of whole cloth, but that thinkers— 
 good, bad, and indifferent—all gather certain raw 
 materials to work up into the more or less finished 
 product. In this case, if Bronson Alcott himself could 
 refer his speculations to predecessors from Plotinus to 
 Boehme, it is not out of order to refer Eddyism to 
 Alcottism. Primitive Christian Science is certainly a 
 series of plagiarisms from Shakerism, Mesmerism, and 
 
"6 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Quimbyism, for we can make columns of parallel state- 
 ments between these movements and the metaphysics 
 of ‘‘ Mother ” Eddy. From Mother Ann Lee came the 
 notion of the female principle of Deity; from Mesmer, 
 by way of inversion, the doctrine of Malicious Animal 
 Magnetism; from Quimby, the healer, the sacred 
 phrases like ‘Divine Principle,’ “Science and 
 Health,” ‘‘ Christian Science,” and the like. A fourth 
 element needs clearing up. Whence came that peculiar 
 philosophical jargon found in the chapter in Science 
 and Health entitled Recapitulation? In an early ar- 
 ticle on The Personal Sources of Christian Science+ I 
 did not touch on the possible Neo-Platonic echoes, for 
 I was not then familiar with the system of Alcott. But 
 a study of that system, together with the summary 
 given by William T. Harris, (‘“‘a competent philoso- 
 pher,” as I called him in the suppressed Cambridge 
 History article), showed an unmistakable resemblance 
 to Eddyism. Eliminate the three previous elements 
 and there remains a residue to be accounted for. With 
 the possible exception of the poet Very there is no 
 other New England transcendentalist who talks in this 
 peculiar fashion about “principle as person,” “ pure 
 soul,”’ and especially the ‘‘ lapse ”’ of the soul. 
 
 These phrases are unique. What is their origin? 
 When Milmine, a trustworthy compiler whose state- 
 ments have never been effectually controverted by the 
 Christian Science censors, tells of Alcott’s visit to Mrs. 
 Eddy (then Mrs. Glover), the clue is found. Put in 
 parallel columns given passages from Recapitulation 
 and over a score of passages from Alcott’s own works, 
 especially the Orphic Sayings, and there is evident a 
 striking resemblance. The argument that Sanborn and 
 
 * Psychological Review, November, 1903. 
 
ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER ae 
 
 Harris do not mention Alcott’s visit to the Christian 
 Science leader is no argument. Assuming that that 
 visit was no earlier than 1875, when Science and 
 Health first appeared, the sect was then so small, its 
 influence so unimportant, that the joint biographers 
 could scarcely have noticed it, even if they knew any- 
 thing about it.” 
 
 To substantiate this assumption I have made a visit 
 to Concord, Massachusetts, and gained the following 
 information. Alcott, according to those who knew him, 
 was quite unsophisticated in worldly affairs, quite un- 
 suspicious of any schemers who had an axe to grind. 
 He would take up with the wildest varieties of thought 
 and the strangest sorts of visionaries. Called the 
 venerable Platonist and idealist, he was attracted by 
 any group which went off on an occult trail. For ex- 
 ample, his Diary of August 28, 1870, has this entry: 
 
 “At the Spiritualist Camp Meeting at Walden Pond. 
 When a company of enthusiasts like these come into one’s 
 neighbourhood ’tis civil to welcome them to so charming 
 a spot as Thoreau’s haunts and put himself in sympathy 
 with them as far as he may. The widest hospitality to all 
 extremes of faith is becoming in times like ours, and to a 
 faith especially that has won millions of people to its 
 acceptance, whatever may be its vagaries and absurdities.” 
 
 With this complaisant recommendation to one set of 
 occultists may be compared the famous “ testimonial ” 
 to Mrs. Glover (Eddy) which for two years was put in 
 the columns of The Christian Science Journal along 
 with accounts of alleged cures of an alphabet of dis- 
 eases. This “ testimonial” reads: “‘ The sound truths 
 
 
 
 ? Reply to James W. Barrett, The Literary Review, Nov. 26, 1921, 
 
78 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 : Lit 
 
 which you announce and. sustain“by faith of the im- 
 mortal life give to your work the seal of inspiration— 
 reaffirm in modern phrase the Christian Revelation. 
 In times like ours, so sunk in sensualism, I hail with 
 joy any voice that-speaks an assured word for God and 
 Immortality. And my joy is heightened the more the 
 - words are of woman’s divinings.” 
 
 Such are the well known phrases which have been so 
 widely exploited by the faithful. When Daniel Spof- 
 ford, who helped Mrs. Eddy financially to get out the 
 first edition of Science and Health, asked Alcott if they 
 might use his letter, Alcott replied that they might do 
 so if it were used “‘ with discretion.” * The discretion 
 was so great that the famous phrases appeared not only 
 in the columns of The Christian Science Journal, but 
 five years later are found at the end of an advertise- 
 ment for Science and Health which began with a testi- 
 monial from some nonentity who claimed to have cured 
 ‘consumption, rheumatism, dyspepsia and piles.” 
 
 The giving of this high praise is more or less dis- 
 counted by the fact that the sage of Concord was never 
 known to refuse an invitation to speak before any 
 group of thinkers, whatever the subject they might be 
 interested in. We find reported in his diaries that he 
 gave addresses before girls’ schools, Plato Clubs, 
 Liberal Clubs, the New England Women’s Club of 
 Transcendentalism, Theological schools, intermediate 
 schools, Reading Circles, Emerson Reading Circles, 
 Logic Clubs, Radical Clubs, the Ladies’ Educational 
 Association, and last, but not least, the Ladies’ Physio- 
 logical Club. 
 
 In this connection it is pertinent to note what 
 
 
 
 § Daniel H. Spofford to the Writer, September, 1921. 
 
ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 79 
 
 Thoreau said of Alcott. He called him the “ Great 
 Expecter,” who, with “his hospitable intellect em- 
 braces children, beggars, insane and scholars, and 
 entertains the thought of all.” * So it is somewhat dis- 
 appointing to find that the most talented of any of our 
 neo-platonists made little discrimination in the class of 
 persons for whom he uttered his Orphic Sayings. In 
 his Lyceum tours, and especially in his trips to the 
 west, he was known as “ the Wise Man from the East,” 
 and there addressed the really thoughtful and compe- 
 tent. Alcott was the inspirer towards philosophic study 
 of William T. Harris and had much to do in stimulating 
 the activities of the St. Louis School of Hegelian ideal- 
 ism. He was also the nominal but revered head of the 
 Concord School of Philosophy. This is one side of the 
 picture. There is another. It may be considered a 
 veritable lapse of the soul that he should fall from his 
 high estate and take up with the kind of people he 
 occasionally did. Perfectly unsophisticated in worldly 
 affairs, Alcott was at the same time perfectly open to 
 the solicitations of any class of visionaries. All this 
 goes to explain the fact that soon after writing the 
 oft-quoted letter of January 17, 1876, Alcott visited 
 Mrs. Glover at Lynn. 
 
 In this connection, also, a statement has been made 
 which needs verification, and that verification is lack- 
 ing. That Emerson had heard of Science and Health 
 and by inference thought highly of its author is im- 
 probable. At that time the “sage of Concord ” had 
 largely lost his memory and could scarcely recall the 
 events of the day before. This was due to the fact that 
 four years before he had suffered a mental breakdown 
 
 
 
 4Sanborn, Recollections, 2. 466. 
 
 ke 
 
80 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 which was brought about by the fire in his house with 
 attendant exposure and shock.® From all this one 
 judges that Alcott, the enthusiast, was apt to attribute 
 to others the opinions which he held himself. Indeed, 
 only two years before, he states that Emerson agreed 
 with him as to the value of a certain curious pamphlet, 
 “The Anesthetic Revelation, and the Gift of Philos- 
 ophy,” © adding that its author was “a man with a 
 mystic tinge, very dear to me.” * 
 Thus do the Diaries of Alcott exhibit the perfect en- 
 thusiast, listening, as he said, with “ not indocile ears ” 
 for the faintest echo of occult lore, whether it came 
 from the heights of Parnassus or from Horticultural 
 Hall. 
 All was grist to Alcott’s metaphysical mill, and un- 
 less we allow for the uncritical catholicity of his mind 
 we shall fail to understand why he put apparently in 
 the same grade the fine flour of Neo-Platonism and 
 the middlings of Eddyite ‘‘ divine metaphysics.” 
 So much for the personality of the venerable idealist. 
 Now for the particular place in which he met the 
 alleged “‘ discoverer.”’ From a cursory examination of 
 Alcott’s manuscripts a certain Christian Science investi- 
 _ gator once made the preposterous claim that Alcott was 
 _a Christian Scientist. This is the same old game of 
 putting the chronological cart before the philosophical 
 
 horse. But here the Diaries themselves disprove this 
 ‘absurdity. Alcott went to Lynn in 1876 to address 
 - Mrs. Glover’s class of scientific metaphysicians, but 
 that was by no means his first visit to the town where 
 
 he had not only several connections but many friends. 
 
 
 
 ° Information’ from Dr. Edward Emerson, Jan. 3, 1922. 
 *By Bejamin Paul Blood, Amsterdam, New York, 1874. 
 7 Alcott Diary, June 1, 1874. 
 
ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 81 
 
 Among these friends was Dr. Jones, the Quaker, Jacob 
 Bachelder, the librarian, and the Reverend Samuel 
 Robinson, who came later to reside in Concord. From 
 Alcott’s relations with these three men one can gain a 
 glimpse into the upper intellectual circles of their town. 
 
 We may here interpolate the suggestion that it was 
 Mr. Bachelder who probably put into the Lynn library 
 those occult works, especially Alcott’s Orphic Sayings 
 and the Tablets which furnished the source, font, and 
 inspiration for most of the metaphysics that exist in 
 Science and Health.’ 
 
 But the last of the triumvirate of Lynn worthies is 
 the most potent to overthrow the grotesque claim that 
 Alcottism was Eddyism in disguise. ‘Thirty-six years 
 before Mrs. Glover compiled her precious volume in 
 the upper room of Lynn, while “ the day star of Divine 
 Science ” shone through the window, Alcott had been 
 on the scene. In fact he had delivered a series of con- 
 versations at the house of the Reverend Samuel Robin- 
 son. His titles in some cases are those of the chapter 
 headings of Science and Health itself. ‘‘ In referring 
 to my Diary of March, 1839,” records Alcott, ‘‘ I find 
 my topics were these: Con. I, Doctrine and Concep- 
 tion; II. God and Man; III. Matter and Spirit; IV. 
 Knowledge and Instinct; V. Family; VI. Memory 
 and Hope; VII. Sleep and Dreams; VIII. Piety and 
 Impiety; 1X. Probation and Retribution; X. Genesis ; 
 XI. Wonder and Worship; XII. Good and Evil.” 
 
 
 
 8The Lynn Library, prior to 1875 (the date of the first edition 
 of Science and Health), had on its shelves the Dial (1841-1844) 
 containing Alcott’s Orphic Sayings; The Boston Commonwealth 
 (1863-1864), which published several of Alcott’s Essays later col- 
 lected in the Tablets; and Alcott’s Tablets (1868). Information 
 from the present librarian of the Lynn Public Library, Mr, Clar- 
 ence E, Sherman (Dec, 28, 1921). 
 
82. THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 As a curious coincidence, if nothing more, we ask 
 the reader to compare the list above with the chapter 
 headings of the first edition of Science and Health. 
 They are these: I. Natural Science; Il. Imposition 
 and Demonstration; III. Spirit and Matter; IV. Cre- 
 ation; V. Prayer and Worship; VI. Marriage; VII. 
 Physiology; VIII. Healing the Sick. From a com- 
 parison of the latter captions with the former we can 
 understand why Alcott, “the Great Expecter,” as 
 Thoreau called him, would welcome the thoughts of 
 the prophetess of Lynn. They were the children of 
 his own brain coming back to him. Though they wore 
 strange clothes he recognised them and took them to 
 his bosom. 
 
 It is now our task to strip off these clothes and find 
 in the Eddyite ‘‘ spiritual ” science the essentials and 
 sometimes the very words of Alcott the inspirer. Here 
 we can almost believe in the old Puritan doctrine of a 
 Providence that ‘‘ works in a mysterious way, his won- 
 ders to perform,” when we read the statement of Mrs. 
 Eddy that ‘‘ God has been graciously fitting me during 
 many years for the reception of a final revelation of the 
 absolute principle of scientific mind healing.” 
 
 There is little use arguing about actual dates of con- 
 tact between the two writers unless there be a strong 
 prior resemblance between their thoughts. But in 
 making the comparison we owe certain apologies to 
 Alcott. Emerson, it is true, criticised the Orphic Say- 
 ings as being written in a style which plays with the 
 thought, a style “ to balk and disappoint expectations, 
 to use a coarse word ’tis all stir and no go.” ® But even 
 with these faults Alcottism was a genuine form of Neo- 
 
 
 
 °F. B. Sanborn, Recollections, 2.490. 
 
ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 83 
 
 Platonism and Eddyism, an aberrant form. The aber- 
 rations were obviously caused by Mrs. Eddy’s lack of 
 logic. A mind that can reason that the converse of a 
 proposition is as true as the original proposition is what 
 we have a right to call a crooked mind. To argue that, 
 because there is “no mind in matter,” “there is no 
 matter in mind,” is like saying that because “ all cats 
 are animals, all animals are cats.” It is a very poor 
 rule that works both ways as a syllogism. Mrs. Eddy 
 confuses logic with a play on words and we can infer 
 the childish nature of her mind by quoting a palin- 
 drome, or real reversible statement. Thus Napoleon 
 was said to have. declared, ‘“‘ Able was I ere I saw 
 Elba.”’ Now this fanciful declaration not only reads 
 backward, but spells backward as well as it does for- 
 ward. We offer it as a fit substitute for the famous 
 “reversible proposition ’”? Number 4: “ Life, God, om- 
 nipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin, disease—Disease, 
 sin, evil, death, deny Good, omnipotent God, life.” 7° 
 Beside being illogical, Mrs. Eddy is ignorant. Al- 
 cott’s system is full of correct classical references; he 
 knows the Muses and he knows the gods of old. So 
 this part of his system is a closed book to an authoress 
 who could derive Adam from the Latin demens and 
 Pantheism from the Greek god Pan. All this goes to 
 explain the twisted transcendentalism to be found in 
 Eddyism. It was not that what went into one ear went 
 out of another, but that whatever went in came out in 
 a strangely distorted form. Psychologically, Mrs. 
 Eddy’s uses of the Orphic Sayings could be compared 
 to the well known case of Héléne “ Smith,” studied by 
 Professor Flournoy in his book entitled From India to 
 
 
 
 * Science and Health (1900), p. 7. 
 
84 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 the Planet Mars. His subject was a shop girl with an 
 ordinary education who claimed, among other things, 
 to have been a reincarnation of a princess of India. In 
 her automatic writings, produced under hypnoidal con- 
 ditions, she not only gave descriptions of ancient India, 
 but actually wrote words in Sanscrit. The source of 
 these phenomena was a puzzle until Professor Flour- 
 noy found out that his subject had once been employed 
 in the household of a scholar who had left certain 
 Sanscrit texts lying about. These Mademoiselle 
 ‘“‘ Smith ” had unconsciously registered on her memory 
 and years afterwards had brought forth in the form of 
 automatic writing. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy’s case is analogous. She, too, went off 
 ‘into trances and left behind automatic writings.’ In 
 all this she was not unique. Like Andrew Jackson 
 Davis, the shoemaker’s apprentice, with his “‘ Divine 
 Revelation,” she claimed to write under inspiration. 
 But as the Poughkeepsie seer, even in his “ superior 
 condition,” was once caught repeating passages from a 
 book known to be in his possession,’ so we can dis- 
 cover a similar procedure in the case of the sibyl of 
 Lynn and the writings of Alcott. Of course, admirers 
 of the two inspirational writers can claim that great 
 
 “Compare Milmine, p. 66, who gives in facsimile a “spirit” 
 letter from Mrs. Eddy’s brother, Albert, to Mrs. Crosby. Milmine 
 misinterprets this letter, which warns Mrs. Crosby against Mrs. 
 Eddy’s machinations. It is a case of unconscious cerebration or 
 more exactly of decentralisation. In the trance state Mrs. Eddy 
 could not help giving herself away. See below, Chapter XIII. 
 
 % Compare Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science, p. 230. 
 For a similar case, see Science and Health, first edition, p. 272, 
 where Mrs. Eddy forgets to rub out a quotation mark at the 
 beginning of a passage borrowed from another writer, and then 
 goes on as if the whole paragraph were her own. This passage 
 begins: “We have no right to assume that individuals have... .” 
 
 Mrs, Eddy then adds her old Portland statement: “That earth 
 was hatched from the egg of night was anciently argued.” 
 
ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 85 
 
 minds work in the same channel. But when, in the 
 case of Alcott and Eddy, both have precisely the same 
 views, for example on the mystery of evil, and the one 
 view is given long prior to the other, the claim falls flat. 
 
 It may be that there are those who still believe in 
 coincidences. But it is more than a coincidence that 
 there should be such a series of resemblances between 
 Eddyism and Alcottism as we here present. The reader 
 is asked to test this method of comparison by reading 
 the documents in the next chapter aloud to a third 
 party, preferably a Christian Scientist, though the lat- 
 ter are cautioned against listening to anything outside 
 the official works. The test can best be made by read- 
 ing aloud from the two columns at haphazard and try- 
 ing to distinguish which is from the Orphic Sayings in 
 the Dial and which from the first edition of Science 
 and Health, 
 
IX 
 MYSTICISM 
 
 “As to the pretended independent ‘ seers, outsiders of 
 Boehme’s revelations,—whose names need not be men- 
 tioned,—these are of course not to be admitted into the 
 category of the standard theologists, being mere phantas- 
 matists or visionaries, and who, though uttering a great 
 many good, and to some recondite minds, surprising 
 things, say in effect nothing but what is to be found in a 
 much more solid and edifying form in the writings of 
 ancient classic divines and philosophers.” —CHRISTOPHER 
 WALTON To ALCOTT. | 
 
 “When contemplating the majesty and magnitude of 
 this query, 1t looked as tf centuries of spiritual growth 
 were requisite to enable me to elucidate or to demonstrate 
 what I had discovered: but an unlooked-for, imperative, 
 call for help, wmpelled me to begin this stupendous work 
 at once.’—Mnrs, Eppy. 
 
 N the period when Mrs. Eddy withdrew from 
 | society to ponder her mission to mankind we 
 know that Alcott was wandering about New 
 England in search of the votaries of the occult. The 
 significance of his visit to Lynn was that he was invited 
 to attend Mrs. Eddy’s class of “ scientific metaphysi- 
 cians.” Unless the veiled prophetess had known and 
 approved of his writings he would not have been asked 
 to unveil the mysteries to that precious little band. So 
 he came, he talked, he conquered, and in return for 
 this privilege he gave out his sentiments “ to be used 
 
 86 
 
MYSTICISM 87 
 
 with discretion,’ but what discretion! Published in 
 an appendix in the advertisements for Science and 
 Health like a testimonial for a patent medicine cure. 
 
 We are here brought to the mystical elements in 
 Eddyism. ‘The only parts of Christian Science that 
 are philosophically worth examining are these faint 
 echoes of a golden past, echoes from that time when 
 the interior or hidden life was studied in simplicity of 
 mind, was kept to the favoured few, and was never 
 degraded by being copyrighted and commercialised. 
 
 While Alcott’s system was built on a sound knowl- 
 edge of the ancient authorities, Mrs. Eddy’s was not. 
 When Alcott relies on his library of mystic writers and 
 quotes with approval from Plotinus of Alexandria, from 
 Boehme of Germany, from Cudworth and More of 
 England, Mrs. Eddy calls her system “this sacred 
 science,” a “ first hand revelation in which unfathom- 
 able mind has expressed itself.” But if, as she de- 
 clares, ‘‘ Truth came through the person of a New 
 England girl,” it is very strange that a New England 
 man had already expressed truths so similar that they 
 can hardly be told apart. We leave it to the reader, 
 then, to make a comparison between Mrs. Eddy’s first 
 chapter entitled Natural Science, of 1875, and the 
 Orphic Sayings of 1841-1844. 
 
 But before the particular parallels are given there 
 should be noted a general resemblance between two 
 other statements. The first is Mrs. Eddy’s description 
 of her “ discovery,” the second an anticipation of that 
 “discovery ” by Alcott some thirty years before. In 
 her chapter entitled Recapitulation, Mrs. Eddy de- 
 clared herself as follows: 
 
 “When I was given up to die I gained a higher sense of 
 
88 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Life, a ray from the divine science of being, and it healed 
 me. Since then my highest creed is Science, Christianity 
 and God. I learned of this sacred science that God is 
 Truth and Life, and this Truth and Life, understood 
 instead of believed and feared, reveals the ‘strait and 
 narrow way that leads to Life,’ that heals the sick and 
 casts out error; that all that really is proceeds from 
 God, and is harmonious and eternal; that sickness, sin 
 and death, being inharmonies, originate not with God, and 
 belong not to His government, insomuch as the law of 
 God, understood, destroys them.” 
 
 Alongside of this flamboyant statement, made some 
 years after the discovery, we put the other statement 
 which some might think a prophecy, but others a hint 
 from which the seeress of Lynn drew her inspiration. 
 In one of his Orphic Sayings, entitled Calculus, Alcott 
 declared: 
 
 “We need, what Genitts is unconsciously seeking, and, 
 by some daring generalisation of the universe, shall as- 
 suredly discover, a spiritual calculus, a novuwm organon, 
 whereby nature shall be divined in the soul, the soul in 
 God, matter in spirit, polarity resolved into unity; and 
 that power which pulsates in all life, animates and builds 
 all organisations, shall manifest itself as one universal 
 deific energy, present alike at the outskirts and centre of 
 the universe, whose center and circumference are one; 
 omniscient, omnipotent, self-subsisting, uncontained, yet 
 containing all things in the unbroken synthesis of its 
 being.” 
 
 We give the following quotations at length because 
 of the difficulty of procuring the first edition of Science 
 and Health; for example, the Boston Public Library 
 contained two copies. One of these is now “ reported 
 
MYSTICISM 89 
 
 ‘lost,” the other is in a safe. 
 
 We utilise here a copy 
 
 presented by Mrs. Glover (Eddy) herself to a certain 
 library. . . . The quotations from The Dial may be 
 found in the reprint made by the Rowfant Club, Cleve- 
 
 land, 1901-1902. 
 
 Science and Health 
 
 We learn from science 
 mind is universal, the first 
 and only cause of all that 
 really is; also, that the real 
 and unreal constitute what 
 is, and what is not; that 
 the real is Spirit, which is 
 immortality, and the unreal 
 matter, or mortality. The 
 real is Truth, Life, Love 
 and Intelligence, all of 
 which are Spirit, and Spirit 
 is God, and God, Soul, the 
 Principle of the universe 
 and man. Spirit is the only 
 immortal basis. Matter is 
 mortality; it has no Prin- 
 ciple, but is change and 
 decay, embracing what we 
 term sickness, sin, and 
 
 death. (10, 11) 
 
 Mind, the basis of all 
 things, cannot cross its 
 species, and produce mat- 
 ter. But in order to clas- 
 sify mind that is real, from 
 belief, or the unreal, we 
 name one mind, and the 
 other matter; but recollect 
 matter is but a belief, and 
 
 Orphic Sayings 
 Life eludes all scientific 
 analysis. Each organ and 
 function is modified in sub- 
 stance and varied in effect, 
 by the subtile energy which 
 
 pulsates throughout the 
 whole economy of things, 
 spiritual and _ corporeal. 
 
 The each is instinct with 
 the all; the all unfolds and 
 reappears in each. Spirit 
 is all in all. God, man, 
 nature, are a divine syn- 
 thesis, whose parts it is im- 
 piety to sunder. (XXXIII. 
 Each and All) 
 
 There is neither void in 
 nature, nor death in spirit, 
 —all is vital, nothing God- 
 less. . . . Sense beholds 
 life never,—death always. 
 (VII. Immanence) 
 
 Solidity is an illusion of 
 the senses. To faith, noth- 
 ing is solid; the nature of 
 the soul renders such fact 
 impossible. Modern chem- 
 istry demonstrates that 
 nine-tenths of the human 
 body are fluid, and sub- 
 stances of inferior order in 
 
90 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Science and Health 
 
 mind the only reality. Er- 
 ror can only be defined as 
 belief, which is not mind, 
 but illusion. The belief. 
 that Life, Substance, and 
 Intelligence are where and 
 what they are not, is error. 
 Spirit is the understanding 
 and possession of ‘Truth, 
 Life and Intelligence. Be- 
 lief and understanding 
 never mingle, more than 
 matter and Spirit; one 1s 
 error, the other Truth. All 
 discord is what we term 
 matter, and discord is mor- 
 tal, nothingness; harmony 
 is real and immortal, for it 
 belongs to Spirit, is pro- 
 duced by it and proceeds 
 from it. Immortal mind is 
 Spirit, an utterance of 
 Soul proceeding from har- 
 mony and immortality. 
 The mind, that we name 
 matter, is the so-called 
 mind of the body, and 
 what is termed sinful and 
 mortal man; but this man 
 is a myth, neither mind nor 
 matter, but a belief that 
 embraces all error. (13) 
 
 Will man lose his iden- 
 tity in conscious infinitude 
 of being? . . . Life is prin- 
 
 Orphic Sayings 
 
 lesser proportion. Matter 
 is ever pervaded and agi- 
 tated by the omnipresent 
 soul. All things are in- 
 stinct with spirit. (XXXVI. 
 
 Flux) 
 
 Divined aright, there is 
 nothing purely organic; all 
 things are vital and inor- 
 ganic. ‘The microscope is 
 developing this sublime 
 fact. Sense looking at the 
 historic surface beholds 
 what it deems matter, yet 
 is but spirit in fusion, 
 fluent, pervaded by her 
 own immanent vitality and 
 trembling to organise it- 
 self. Neither matter nor 
 death are possible: what 
 seem matter and death are 
 sensuous impressions, 
 which, in our sanest mo- 
 ments, the authentic in- 
 stinct contradicts. The 
 sensible world is spirit in 
 magnitude, outspread be- 
 fore the senses for their 
 analysis, but whose syn- 
 thesis is the soul herself, 
 whose prothesis is God. 
 Matter is but the confine of 
 spirit limning her to sense. 
 
 (XLI. Spirit and Matter) 
 
 The insatiableness of her 
 desires is an augury of the 
 soul’s eternity. Yearning 
 
MYSTICISM 91 
 
 Science and Health 
 
 ciple, and not person.... 
 In science we learn that 
 there is but one God, also 
 that God is Spirit; hence 
 there is but one Spirit... . 
 Spirit [is] the only sub- 
 stance because it is Intelli- 
 gence—comprehending the 
 universe and man in the 
 harmony of being. ..-. 
 Soul is not in body, it is 
 the unlimited Intelligence, 
 impossible to limit, and the 
 immortality that mingles 
 not with mortality; as light 
 and darkness are opposites, 
 so are Spirit and matter, 
 without the least affinity. 
 
 The line of demarkation 
 between the Principle that 
 is Intelligence and Life, 
 and the belief of Life and 
 Intelligence in person, is 
 the boundary between be- 
 lief and science, otherwise, 
 
 between error and truth. 
 (20) 
 
 Spiritual, in contradis- 
 tinction to personal sense 
 reveals man idea... thus 
 secure from chance and 
 change he is harmonious 
 
 Orphic Sayings 
 
 for satisfaction, yet ever 
 balked of it from temporal 
 things, she still prosecutes 
 her search for it. . .. She 
 would breathe life, organise 
 light; her hope is eternal; 
 a never-ending, still-begin- 
 ning quest of the Godhead 
 in her own bosom; a per- 
 petual effort to actualise 
 her divinity in time. (IX. 
 Aspiration ) 
 
 Every soul feels at times 
 her own possibilities of be- 
 coming a God; she cannot 
 rest in the human, she as- 
 pires after the Godlike. 
 (X. Apotheosis) 
 
 It is the perpetual effort 
 of conscience to divorce the 
 soul from the dominion of 
 sense. (XV. Identity and 
 Diversity ) 
 
 Life, in its initial state, 
 is synthetic; then feeling, 
 thought, action are one and 
 individual. But 
 thought disintegrates and 
 breaks this unity of soul. 
 
 (XLVI) 
 
 As the man, so his God: 
 God is his idea of excel- 
 lence; the complement of 
 his own being. (III. Hope) 
 
92 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Science and Health 
 
 and eternal. . . . Man is 
 the complex idea of God, 
 hence, they cannot be sepa- 
 rated. (24, 25) 
 
 Soul is the only living 
 consciousness, and Soul 
 neither sins, nor suffers; it 
 is immortal, and error is 
 mortal. (1, 27) 
 
 ... God is Principle, 
 . substance and Life, 
 
 hence man is but the image 
 and likeness of these; ... 
 therefore, man is not mat- 
 ter, but idea. .°. . Sub- 
 stance, Life and Intelli- 
 gence all must be outside 
 matter. (30) 
 
 Infinite Soul embraces 
 perfect understanding, the 
 light that neither diminishes 
 nor increases. ... Soul is 
 self-existent and _ eternal. 
 
 (31) 
 
 God and man are Prin- 
 ciple and idea. ... Then 
 what can separate man 
 from harmony and immor- 
 tality? (33) 
 
 Orphic Sayings 
 
 That which holds itself 
 above all sin, impeccable, 
 immaculate, immutable, the 
 deity of the heart, the con- 
 science of the soul. (XVI. 
 Conscience) 
 
 Man is a rudiment and 
 embryon of God: eternity 
 shall develop in him the 
 divine image. (XXXIX. 
 
 Embryon) 
 
 So shall your soul be 
 filled with light, and God 
 be an indwelling fact,—a 
 presence in the depths of 
 your being. (I. Nature) 
 
 Organisations are mor- 
 tal; the seal of death is 
 fixed on them even at birth. 
 ... Only the children of 
 the soul are immortal. 
 (XXXVIII. Time) 
 
 All life is eternal; there 
 is none other; and all un- 
 rest is but the struggle of 
 the soul to reassure herself 
 of her inborn immortality ; 
 
MYSTICISM 93 
 
 Science and Health 
 
 God is the Soul of man 
 and the only Intelligence, 
 Life or Substance ; and man 
 is the reflex shadow of 
 God. 
 
 Which shall be substance, 
 the erring, mutable and 
 mortal, or the changeless, 
 unerring or immortal[ ?] 
 
 (39) 
 
 There is neither growth, 
 ‘maturity nor decay to Soul ; 
 these are the mutations of 
 sense, the clouds before 
 Soul that we call substance, 
 but they are only vapour. 
 
 (40) 
 
 Man is the idea of his 
 Principle, and only as the 
 image and likeness of In- 
 telligence and Life, sub- 
 stance and Spirit, is he be- 
 yond the reach of death, in 
 the science of being, where 
 nothing can harm or de- 
 stroy him; of that which is 
 materialised it can only be 
 said, “dust thou art and 
 unto dust shalt thou re- 
 turn.” (52) 
 
 Gender is Principle and 
 not person, and man is 
 
 Orphic Sayings 
 
 to recover her lost intuiting 
 of the same, by reason of 
 her descent amidst the lusts 
 and worship of the idols of 
 flesh and sense. Her dis- 
 comfort reveals her lapse 
 from innocence; her loss of 
 the divine presence and 
 favour. Fidelity alone shall 
 insaturate the Godhead in 
 her bosom. (XI. Discon- 
 tent) 
 
 The worldling, living to 
 sense, is identified with the 
 flesh; he dwells amid the 
 dust and vapours of his 
 own lusts, which dim his 
 vision and obscure the 
 heavens wherein the saint 
 beholds the face of God.- 
 (VIII. Mysticism) 
 
 The pure unfallen soul is 
 above choice. Her life is 
 unbroken, synthetic; she is 
 a law to herself, and finds 
 no lusts in her members. 
 (XIII. Choice) 
 
 The grander my concep- 
 tion of being, the nobler 
 
94 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Science and Health 
 
 shadow and not substance ; 
 why he is mortal to per- 
 sonal sense, is because it 
 supposes him substance, 
 Life and Intelligence. Mor- 
 tal man is but a dream of 
 Intelligence, substance and 
 Life in matter, not the man 
 of God, but the man of 
 man, and shadow of shad- 
 ows, therefore he reflects 
 no Principle, and is with- 
 out any real basis. To per- 
 sonal sense science is pre- 
 sumptive logic ; nevertheless 
 it reveals Truth; the ulti- 
 matum of being corrobo- 
 rates the statement that 
 man is shadow and not 
 substance; we are daily 
 hastening to this proof, and 
 must reach its recognition 
 to gain immortality, for the 
 Truth of man alone makes 
 him immortal, (57) 
 
 Enough of these feeble paraphrases. 
 
 Orphic Sayings 
 
 my future. There can be 
 no sublimity of life without 
 faith in the soul’s eternity. 
 Let me live superior to 
 sense ... and I shall ex- 
 perience my divinity. 
 Innocent, the soul is 
 quick with instincts of un- 
 erring aim; then she knows 
 by intuition what lapsed 
 reason defines by labour- 
 ious inference. sy 
 reasoning the soul strives 
 to recover her lost intu- 
 itions, groping amidst the 
 obscure darkness of sense 
 by means of the fingers of 
 logic for treasures present 
 alway and available to the 
 eye of conscience. (XIV. 
 Instinct and Reason) 
 
 Mrs. Eddy 
 
 manifestly had before her Alcott’s metaphysics, but 
 she was so ignorant of the very meaning of that word 
 that she speaks of it in the plural: “‘ Metaphysics lead 
 into all truth, they enlarge the capacity for good,” she 
 declares. For those who care to carry the parallel 
 further her chapter on Creation will furnish a rich 
 field for the comparative method. There, for example, 
 she enlarges on the thoughts suggested by Alcott. We 
 mentioned first his doctrine of Calculus and “ the 
 deific energy whose center and circumference are one.” 
 
MYSTICISM 95 
 
 To this we can add the saying on Genesis where Alcott 
 speaks of “creation, globe and orb.” This suggests 
 the very title and the very thoughts of Mrs. Eddy’s 
 chapter where she explains that “ Life is spherical, 
 without beginning or end. The form of the globe 
 typifies it.” 
 
 We conclude, then, that such parallels in thought, 
 and such repetitions of Alcottian phrases distinctly dis- 
 count the claims of Mrs. Eddy that ‘“ We have made 
 the discovery through spiritual sense that the body of 
 soul embraces the universe and that man is the full idea 
 of life, substance and intelligence,” 
 
xX 
 DIVINE SCIENCE 
 
 “ Not one of our printed works was ever copied or 
 abstracted from the published or from the unpublished 
 writings of anyone. Throughout our publications of 
 metaphysical healing or Christian Science, when writing 
 or dictating them, we have given ourselves to contempla- 
 tion wholly apart from the observation of the material 
 senses, to look upon a copy would have distracted our 
 thought from the subject. . . . No human pen or tongue 
 taught the Science contained in this book. Its a fact that 
 outssde the Scriptures and this textbook the compound 
 proposttions of Christian Science, that ‘ God is Spirit’ and 
 that ‘Spirit is the only life, substance and intelligence’ 
 cannot be found.’—Mrs. Eppy, in Science and Health, 
 Preface, 1884. 
 
 “God is Spirit; man is embraced and contained in that 
 IS. If you seek for aught beside, your aught becomes 
 naught.”—At,cort, Conversation, 1871. 
 
 “Mrs. Glover, I infer, was a great reader, but did not 
 make herself conspicuous through the fact.’—Dantet, H. 
 SPOFFORD TO THE WRITER. 
 
 Sayings appeared too early to affect Mrs. Eddy. 
 When they were published, in the forties, she 
 was as yet unconscious of her mission to mankind. 
 But The Dial could have easily come within her reach, 
 as did later the rather rare essay of Agassiz on the 
 Classification of Species, from which she quotes to 
 
 96 
 
 [Ms objection may be raised that the Orphic 
 
DIVINE SCIENCE 97 
 
 uphold her doctrine of sexless generation. However, 
 leaving out the early expression of Alcott’s thoughts, 
 there remain two other presentations of his doctrines, 
 the one in a weekly paper, the other in a small book. 
 Alcott’s Essays on such subjects as Woman, Friend- 
 ship, Sex and Old Age appeared in the Boston Com- 
 monwealth of 1863-1864," and with some of the earlier 
 Orphic Sayings were subsequently embodied in the 
 Tablets. The latter volume was published in 1868, 
 two years before Mrs. Eddy copyrighted her first book, 
 The Science of Man, as a real exposition of “ the Un- 
 derstanding of Christianity or God.” ” 
 
 Excluding The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 
 Alcott’s philosophy appeared in three different places. 
 This gives three good chances that Mrs. Eddy read and 
 admired these oracular outpourings. But the internal 
 evidence shows that the authoress had before her the 
 Orphic Sayings as they appeared in The Dial, for her 
 first chapter, as well as subsequent chapters, contain 
 not only peculiar technical terms like absorption and 
 emanation, harmony and intuition, but her chapter 
 headings and Alcott’s titles are sometimes the same. 
 However, in making this comparison we owe another 
 apology to the philosopher of Fruitlands. Eddyism is 
 Alcottism reflected in a muddy mind. When he is 
 clear, she is obscure. When he is stimulating, she is 
 baffling. Yet there is a certain common drift. The 
 current of her thought is towards that goal of Principle 
 
 
 
 1“The Tablets was copyrighted in 1868; nearly half was made 
 up of the essays I had printed (1863) in The Boston Common- 
 wealth.” (Sanborn and Harris, 2.254.) 
 
 2 The Science of Man as we now have it is nothing but a com- 
 pilation made up of the plates of the third edition of Science and 
 Health, so hastily done that the pages are not printed in their 
 numerical order, 
 
98 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 or Oneness which Alcott had ever in mind. Both spoke 
 of the lapsed soul, but when they portray the return 
 of that soul, he is poetic, she prosy. “The Orphic 
 poet sings,” as Emerson expressed it. Thus in his 
 philosopheme on Person, Alcott inserts the lines 
 beginning: 
 
 “When thou approachest to the One, 
 Self from thyself thou first must free.” 
 
 The true poet, the true ascetic appear in these ideas, 
 but when the veiled prophetess of Lynn had these 
 Orphic Sayings before her, she made but a sorry para- 
 phrase of them. The notions are largely similar, the 
 vocabulary almost identical, but the touch of the artist 
 in words is entirely lacking. Where Mrs. Eddy re- 
 peats the same set of phrases and tags of thought with 
 the monotony of slugs coming out of a linotype ma- 
 chine, Alcott embellishes his thought with an infinite 
 variety of illustrations, with telling allusions to classical 
 antiquity and medizval speculation, in short, with the 
 hand of a master in mystic lore. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy, evidently attracted by the strange title 
 Orphic Sayings, attempts the role of a sibyl. But 
 where Alcott occasionally gave forth utterances which 
 Emerson thought significant enough to be embodied in 
 his Essays, Mrs. Eddy talks like a trance medium, the 
 language of whose last séance is indistinguishable from 
 that of the first. The earliest of these séances with 
 herself we have studied, and one sitting is almost too 
 much. If the reader be further interested he can make 
 the test for himself. It makes little difference whether 
 the chapter is called Natural Science or Spirit and 
 Matter or Creation. All are practically made up of 
 
DIVINE SCIENCE 99 
 
 the same old thoughts and phrases over and over again: 
 Life is Principle, Principle is Light; Spirit is the only 
 Substance, the only Substance is Spirit; there is no 
 intelligence in matter, and no matter in intelligence,— 
 you can find these postulates and these patent revers- 
 ibles in the first chapter, the middle chapter and the 
 last chapter of the official text-book. The effect is 
 almost hypnotic both upon the mind of a critical as 
 well as a credulous reader. The repetition of monoton- 
 ous sounds is the easiest way of bringing the subject 
 into a comatose mental condition. This is known to 
 the medicine man with his tomtom and to the leader of 
 the jazz band with his syncopations. Now, this trick 
 of wretched iteration was employed by Mrs. Eddy, 
 first on herself, and then on her followers. She is so 
 fond of her patent reversibles—such as ‘“‘ There is no 
 Mind in matter, no matter in Mind ”—that she actually 
 comes to employ a sort of shorthand formula such as: 
 “There is no death in truth and vice versa”; Soul is 
 not personal sense and vice versa.” 
 
 Now, if this kind of doctrinal dope worked upon the 
 leader in inducing an hypnoidal state conducive to her 
 inspirational writing, it could be utilised to induce in 
 her followers a cognate hypnoidal state conducive to 
 self-healing. Almost anyone can induce mental cathar- 
 sis by repeating the formula for a “ treatment ” with 
 its sing-song reiterations: “‘ Spirit is immortal truth, 
 matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal, 
 matter the unreal and temporal.” 
 
 Alcott has been called a sower of transcendental wild 
 oats. It is certainly a queer crop which sprang up from 
 his Orphic Sayings. These Sayings were a cause of 
 astonishment and even of hilarity in Boston drawing- 
 rooms and met with a number of derisive paraphrases, 
 
100 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 even as far west as Cincinnati. But the worst cari- 
 cature was Eddyism. In the attempt to adopt, the 
 result was to distort. The words are the words of . 
 Bronson, the philosopher, but when the hand of the 
 Reverend Mary rearranged them the effect is ludicrous 
 in the extreme. 
 
 As a genuine piece of metaphysics William T. 
 Harris, the Hegelian, praised the Alcottian system as 
 stating all the great doctrines of Gnosticism and Neo- 
 Platonism with great felicity. Now, this system was 
 taken hold of by Mrs. Eddy and pulled out of shape. 
 The first violent wrench given to it was in a false 
 logical conversion. Alcott as an idealist might say, and 
 did say, that there was no matter in mind, but he could 
 not say that there was no mind in matter. He was an 
 idealist, but not an illusionist. Matter to him was 
 real, but only in the sense of a far-flung emanation of 
 spirit, the outermost ring thrown off from the central 
 source of spiritual light. This made matter in a sense 
 a shadow projected by spirit across space; it did not 
 make it a phantom, an absolute unreality, “an error 
 of mortal mind.” Yet if this be a discovery it is a 
 chance discovery, due not to good authorities like 
 Berkeley, the Irish idealist, but to bad logic like hypo- 
 thetical reversibles—“ the vice versas” of the Eddyite 
 mind, to employ that manner of speaking. 
 
 With the exception of Wiggin, Mrs. Eddy’s literary 
 adviser and occasional sermon-writer, the Christian 
 Science leaders are quite at sea as to Berkeley. Thus 
 Alfred Farlow declares that the Irish idealist taught 
 that “‘ external objects have no existence save as sub- 
 jective ideas.” He adds as his own comment, quite in 
 the style of Mrs. Malaprop, ‘‘ Matter, whatever may 
 
 * Sanborn and Harris, 2.618. 
 
 
 
DIVINE SCIENCE 101 
 
 be its constituency (sic) does not belong to the heav- 
 enly or spiritual state.” * But for a real gem of thought 
 we should ever have recourse to the President of the 
 Massachusetts Metaphysical College, who writes as 
 follows to a disciple: “‘ The little fishes in my fountain 
 must have felt me when I stood silently beside it, for 
 they came out in orderly line to the rim where I stood. 
 Then I fed these sweet little thoughts, that, unfearing 
 me, sought their food. ... With love, Mother, M. 
 B. Eddy.” ® 
 
 Except for the qualities of style and the correct use 
 of technical phrases it is often hard to distinguish be- 
 tween the extreme statements of Alcott and the extreme 
 statements of Mrs. Eddy. But almost enough has 
 been made of this comparative study. The reader may 
 amuse himself by comparing the next chapter in 
 Science and Health, entitled Creation, with what Alcott 
 has to say on Generation and Corruption, on Nature, 
 and on Flux, the latter beginning: “ Solidity is an 
 iliusion of the senses,” and ending with the statement 
 that “ All things are instinct with spirit.” ° But there 
 remains one chapter in Science and Health which has 
 a strange significance, besides an uncanny likeness to 
 Alcott’s Orphic Saying on Organisation. We quote this 
 here at length in order to compare it later with Mrs. 
 Eddy’s kindred views on marriage. Says Alcott: 
 “Possibly organisation is no necessary function or 
 mode of spiritual being. The time may come, in the 
 endless career of the soul, when the facts of incarna- 
 tion, birth, death, descent into matter and ascension 
 from it, shall comprise no part of her history.” ‘ 
 
 “Christian Science Journal, 1904, p. 8. 
 
 ® Tbid., 17.801. 
 
 ® Dial, July, 1840. Orphic Sayings XXXII, XXXV, XXXVI. 
 * Dial, July, 1840. XL. Orphic Sayings. 
 
 
 
102 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 The parallel passage in Science and Health is as fol- 
 lows: “‘ The time cometh when marriage will be a union 
 of hearts; and again, the time cometh when there will 
 be no marrying or giving in marriage, but we shall be 
 as the angels; the Soul rejoicing in its own mate 
 wherein the masculine Wisdom and feminine Love are 
 embraced in the understanding.” ® 
 
 
 
 ® Science and Health (first ed.), p. 322. 
 
XI 
 DEMONOLOGY 
 
 “The high gods come and go but demons remain.” 
 —F Razer, The Golden Bough. 
 
 “The chain of reasoning in primeval man—the first 
 theory in medicine—was only a short one, since the limita- 
 tions of his imagination provided him with no standard 
 of comparison outside his own individuality; primitive 
 thought saw in every illness not readily susceptible of ex- 
 planation, where the sequence of effect upon cause was 
 not immediate—as in most. illnesses—the influence of a 
 stronger malevolent will, of a demoniac power.’ 
 
 —NeEvuBuURGER, History of Medicine. 
 
 “Some years ago, the history of one of our young 
 students, as known to us and many others, diverged into 
 a dark channel of sts own, whereby the unwise young man 
 reversed our metaphysical method of healing, and sub- 
 verted his mental power apparently for the purposes of 
 tyranny peculiar to the individual.” 
 
 —Mrs. Eppy, Demonology. 
 
 N her toyings with theosophy we find Mrs. Eddy 
 influenced by a wind from the east. And we dis- 
 cern further cases of her being affected by the 
 
 cosmic weather. There is a kind of metaphysical 
 meteorology in her attitude towards what she called 
 malicious animal magnetism, or what might also be 
 called a system of hate waves. This doctrine of demon- 
 ology is the obverse side of divine science, a reversed 
 statement with a vengeance. If healing could be done 
 
 103 
 
104 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 at a distance, why not harm? The question was asked 
 and answered in a preliminary form in the earliest 
 edition of Science and Health and carried to such an 
 excess In the next that in subsequent editions it was 
 withdrawn upon the advice of Mrs. Eddy’s literary 
 adviser, the Reverend James H. Wiggin. The subject 
 was so preposterous that when the charge of ‘“‘ mental 
 malpractise”’? was brought by Mrs. Eddy, in.Salem 
 itself, the ancient home of witchcraft, it was thrown out 
 of court. 
 
 We shall give the preliminary account with its veiled 
 references to the alleged perpetrator; then the ex- 
 panded account with some of the curious details of the 
 court proceedings. But before that it is well to make 
 a comparison with similar views held by Quimby and 
 the mesmerists. M. A. M., or malicious animal mag- 
 netism, is first described by Mrs. Eddy as a mere form 
 of mesmerism, alien and hostile to her own metaphysics 
 with its beneficent form of absent treatment. But as 
 absent treatment was obviously derived from Quimby, 
 who in turn got it from the mesmerists, the whole thing 
 forms a vicious circle in reasoning. 
 
 Here we can make a three-fold comparison and see 
 how the three sets of belief can be telescoped the one 
 into the other. As Podmore says, magnetic, odylic and 
 other imponderable effluences formed the foundation of 
 the mesmerists’ creed in 1840-1850; this included some 
 connection between the nervous system of the experi- 
 menter and that of the percipient or sensitive; while 
 the higher phenomena of the mesmerists ranged from 
 community of sensation to travelling clairvoyance.' 
 Now, it will be recalled that Quimby did not deny the 
 
 
 
 *Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science, p. 168. 
 
DEMONOLOGY (105 
 
 phenomenon of mesmerism, but included among the 
 “higher senses” of the human spirit “the mind to 
 mind propagation of human thought,” and the possi- 
 bility of the transference of symptoms from one 
 person to another. As he said in his World of the 
 Senses: “As thought is always changing, so man is 
 always throwing off particles or thoughts and receiv- 
 ing others.” ? 
 
 Inheriting from Quimby this welter of occult beliefs, 
 it is not surprising that Mrs. Eddy could convert what 
 had been employed as a healing principle into a prin- 
 ciple of destruction. Quimby suffered the pains of 
 others vicariously, and suffered them stolidly as part 
 of his healing practise. ‘“‘ You féel a pain. I feel it 
 with you,” he was wont to say.* Mrs. Eddy also 
 underwent this transfer of symptoms, but was fright- 
 ened thereby. Her earliest letters to Quimby disclose 
 her agitation in receiving “dyspepsia and constipa- 
 tion”? of Miss jarvis and the constant ‘“ desire to 
 smoke” from nephew Albert. In 1875 she com- 
 plained: ‘‘The only way I can save myself is to 
 get away from this atmosphere of mind or the minds 
 of the sick.” All this is referred to in the third 
 edition of Science and Health as follows: “In years 
 past we suffered greatly for the sick when healing 
 them.” 4 
 
 Now, the case of Mrs. Eddy, as a well known psy- 
 chologist has phrased it, is the case of a nervous inva- 
 lid with a highly irritable constitution becoming a 
 chronic victim to delusions of persecution.2 What was 
 
 
 
 ? Dresser, iets Manuscripts, p. 242. 
 
 * Thid., p. 
 
 ‘ Tbid. p. 337, 
 
 ° Joseph Jastrow, The Psychology of Conviction, p. 203, New 
 York, 1918. 
 
106 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 easier than for this hysteric personality, less than a 
 decade after these experiences, to utilise them in ex- 
 planation of the apparent malevolent influence of a 
 former student? With these theories and beliefs in 
 mind we can now turn to the first account of demon- 
 ology which later became developed into Mrs. Eddy’s 
 personal devil, a haunting dread to her dying day. 
 Here, then, is the strange obverse side of Eddyism. 
 To discover such incredible stuff in the nineteenth 
 century is like turning up a rotten log, and seeing the 
 crawling life underneath: 
 
 “Ques. Does metaphysical science include medication, 
 hygiene, mesmerism, or mediumship? 
 
 “Ans. Not one of those is included in metaphysical 
 science. What are termed laws of matter yield to the law 
 of Mind in metaphysics; drugs and hygiene are opposed 
 to the science, and act against its Principle. Drugs are 
 inert matter, producing results only through faith in them. 
 Mesmerism, manipulation, or mediumship is the right 
 hand of humbug or of crime; they are delusions, or 
 frauds. When we commenced teaching this science, we 
 permitted students to manipulate the head, ignorant that 
 it could do harm or hinder Mind, acting in an opposite 
 direction, viz., spiritually, while the hands were at work 
 and the Mind directing material action. We regret to say 
 it was the malpractice and terrible crimes of a young stu- 
 dent that called our attention to this question for the first 
 time, and placed it in a new moral and physical aspect. 
 By thorough examination, we learned that manipulation 
 hinders instead of helps mental healing; it also establishes 
 a mesmeric condition between patient and practitioner, 
 that gives the latter opportunity and power to govern the 
 thoughts and actions of his patients in any direction he 
 chooses, and with error instead of Truth. 
 
 “ Mesmerism injures the patient, and must always pre- 
 
DEMONOLOGY 107 
 
 vent a scientific result. The crimes of that student have 
 since reached beyond his patients, and, without manipu- 
 lating, gone forth on their errands of envy and revenge, to 
 draw others into the vortex of ruin, through a mesmeric 
 influence known only to himself. Mesmerism is a direct 
 appeal from error to error, diametrically opposed to meta- 
 physical science, or the power of Soul over sense and 
 Truth over error. Before we discovered, in 1872, the 
 malpractice aforesaid, our convictions had been that it 
 required the consent of the individual to be affected by 
 mesmerism, and we knew that it was impossible to harm 
 anyone with our system of metaphysics, therefore we had 
 given no thought to the subject of a counteracting mental 
 malpractice, and had to meet it unprepared. The power 
 of Truth over error must settle this question, as it has 
 done all others when the reward of their hands shall be 
 given them. 
 
 “We now understand that never another of our stu- 
 dents would have gone astray from the strait and narrow 
 path but for the continued mesmeric influences of that 
 one, employed months, and even years, upon certain indi- 
 viduals whom he wished to turn away from Christian 
 Science, until at last they yielded to the hidden agent, and 
 thought and did as he directed, and he boasted of his 
 power over them. Future history will reveal him, and his 
 inauguration of a power which, if it be not discovered, is 
 fatal to the health, life, or prosperity of the individual. 
 The solution of Salem witchcraft has come, and its remedy 
 is metaphysics instead of a gibbet. We have discovered 
 this year that the mesmerist aforesaid makes people sick, 
 and causes them and their doctor to believe that another 
 did it, and they can be helped only in accordance with that 
 belief. This is to render the metaphysical tests difficult, 
 and prevent, if possible, his own detection. He has now 
 carried mesmerism to its maximum of crime.” ® 
 
 
 
 ® Science and Health, (3rd ed.), Recapitulation. 
 
108 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Christian Science has its criminology and this dis- 
 reputable side of the system was aired in the courts. 
 We quote but briefly from the suppressed chapter of | 
 the third edition of Science and Health, for it takes 
 only a few extracts to expose the panic fright and the 
 absolute irrationalism of a woman who compared her 
 “‘ great discovery ” to that of Newton and gravity and 
 of Columbus and America. The last comparison we 
 might accept, for when Columbus discovered America 
 he discovered savages, and savages, as Garrison re- 
 marks, are prone to regard disease as the work of an 
 evil spirit, or as something produced by a human 
 enemy, possessing supernatural powers.’ 
 
 Mrs. Eddy’s reference to Salem witchcraft is also 
 pertinent, for, as Edward Eggleston observes in his 
 chapter on The Mental Outfit of the Early Colonists, 
 “Men may live in the same time without being intel- 
 lectual contemporaries.” ‘Thus there was an entire 
 background of lingering beliefs for Mrs. Eddy to draw 
 upon. Massachusetts, as the landing place of the Pil- 
 grims and Puritans, contained much of their old mental 
 furniture, strange crotchets which lay forgotten in the 
 nooks and corners of memory. In addition, as a sea- 
 faring commonwealth the Bay State harboured sailors, 
 and some sailors, as Herman Melville, author of 
 Moby Dick, notes, are supposed to possess the gift of 
 second sight, and the power to wreak supernatural 
 vengeance upon those who offend them. 
 
 In these parts, then, beliefs in malevolent mental 
 powers were endemic, latent in the popular mind. But 
 this was not all. In writing her chapter on Demon- 
 ology, Mrs. Eddy embellished her account with the: 
 
 
 
 "FR, H. Garrison, History of Medicine, Chap. I. Philadel- 
 phia, 1914. . . 
 
DEMONOLOGY 109 
 
 very language of another primitive mind, that of 
 Quimby. Reference to “seeds” of error taking root 
 in the mind, to “ hidden influences ” upon children and 
 to “suffering for others ”; phrases like “ the steam of 
 physics,” and “ the hue of the individual mind,” were 
 lifted almost bodily from the manuscripts of the Port- 
 land practitioner. All this may be seen in the follow- 
 ing passages from Science and Health: 
 
 “ There is but one conclusion to be had in the case, and 
 that is the well-acknowledged fact among scientists, that 
 the aforesaid mesmerist is constantly trying to pour this 
 base falsehood and groundless fear into the thoughts of 
 people merely to injure us, disregarding the bad effect his 
 silent arguments have on their health. If these seeds of 
 error that he is sowing take root in their minds they will 
 spring up and bear fruit after their own kind, even the 
 results of error, and make the one sick whose mind he 
 impresses with this falsehood. ... 
 
 “ Our Christian students have seen children thrown into 
 fits by the hidden influence of mental malpractice, covered 
 with virulent humours from the same cause, etc., etc., and, 
 until they destroyed the effects of this mesmerism, those 
 children could not be cured. But for the skill of Chris- 
 tian scientists the slaughter of innocents at this period, and 
 by the aforesaid means, would gain more hideous propor- 
 tions than it has already done. . . . With the error of his 
 own evil nature thrown into the scale, and by reversing 
 the arguments of Truth, he attempts to make sickness 
 through a silent mental process, even as the metaphysician 
 restores health by the mental process. In his mental argu- 
 ment to frighten an individual and build up a belief of 
 disease, he includes another one, namely, to make that in- 
 dividual believe that some one else is doing this, and he 
 cannot be healed unless he is treated for the effects that 
 individual is supposed to be producing on him, This last 
 
110 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 infirmity of sin is possible only to mesmerism, and, like all 
 the rest, is impossible in metaphysics. Mesmerism can 
 make mortals believe a lie, but metaphysics cannot; it can 
 only make them unbelieve it. Mesmerism can tell one to 
 perform certain acts at stated times, or he will suffer, and 
 bring about this infernal result, unless this individual 
 knows his remedy... . 
 
 “Tf one decent deed is done by the mental malprac- 
 titioner, ten that are terrible are also done; and if one 
 disease is allayed by this mental outlaw, another one, more 
 dangerous is induced. Mesmerism is practised both with 
 and without manipulation ; but the vile deed without a sign 
 is also done by the manipulator and mental malprac- 
 titioner. . . . The secret mental assassin stalks abroad, 
 and needs to be branded to be known in what he is doing. 
 Why we take so few students is because of the great 
 danger there is in promiscuously teaching metaphysics, or 
 the power of mind to do good, lest it abuse that trust, for- 
 sake metaphysics, and this developed mental power be- 
 comes the steam of physics and the extracts and essences 
 OF evil’ e".” 
 
 Our account needs further elucidation, and for this 
 we take advantage of a very fine study made by Pro- 
 fessor Joseph Jastrow. In this the subject is pushed 
 back to its remote historical sources. In its anthro- 
 pological kinship, says the critic, the belief is affiliated 
 to the widespread superstition (particularly prevalent 
 in the Orient and southern Europe) of the evil eye, 
 by which is cast a spell on those upon whom it falls, 
 when accompanied by malicious intent. “ M. A. M.” 
 is a mental form of evil eye. . . . In medizval belief 
 there was recognised a white and a black magic. The 
 necromancer used the latter to wreak revenge upon 
 his enemies, and offered his services to others for this 
 
DEMONOLOGY 417 
 
 end. In Christian tradition the power was gained by 
 compact with the Devil, always regarded as the source 
 of illicit influence. The method of acquiring the 
 power for evil varies with the cult in which it is in- 
 corporated. Its most general formulation is in the 
 belief in witchcraft, which has an eventful history, 
 spreading sporadically in successive epidemics over 
 several centuries. Thus, one phase of “M. A. M.” 
 and its central doctrine, reflects the hold of a world- 
 wide superstition natural to primitive religions, with 
 interesting survivals among less enlightened communi- 
 ties of modern times.® 
 
 In claiming that the term “animal magnetism ” 
 comes to Mrs. Eddy directly from Mesmer (1734- 
 1815) more emphasis should now be laid on the in- 
 fluence of Quimby as an intermediary. But from here 
 on the story of ‘“ M. A. M.,” as the critic properly 
 says, is the story of Mrs. Eddy’s personal relations to 
 the belief. So we may take up the subsequent story of 
 ““M. A. M.” by means of a few brief extracts from Pro- 
 fessor Jastrow’s account. The villain referred to in the 
 above documents was only partially masked, for he is 
 next referred to as ““ R——-d K y.” Now Richard 
 Kennedy’s successor was Daniel Spofford, who, in 
 1877, in turn came under the ban. He left Mrs. Eddy 
 and the latter thus referred to him in the third edition 
 of Science and Health: “Since Science and Health 
 first went to press, we have observed the crimes of 
 another mesmeric outlaw, in a variety of ways, who 
 does not as a common thing manipulate, in cases where 
 he suddenly attempted to avenge himself of certain 
 individuals. . . .”. And the further tale of how Mrs. 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 The Psychology of Conviction, Chap. VII, N. Y., 1918. 
 
112 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Eddy, through one of her patients—Miss Lucretia L. 
 S. Brown—so worked upon her mind as to bring suit 
 against Spofford as a mesmerist is a curiosity in legal 
 literature. But the climax is reached in Mrs. Eddy’s 
 interview given out on June 5, 1882, regarding the 
 alleged cause of the death of Mr. Eddy: ‘“‘ My hus- 
 band’s death was caused by malicious mesmerism. Dr. 
 Rufus K. Noyes, late of the City Hospital, who held 
 an autopsy over the body today, affirms that the corpse 
 is free from all material poison, although Dr. Eastman 
 still holds to his original belief. I know that it was 
 poison that killed him, not material poison, but 
 mesmeric poison.” 
 
 One gruesome detail which has been reported and 
 corroborated is that Mrs. Eddy was shown the heart 
 of her husband after the autopsy was performed. That 
 organ, as the physician pointed out, bore marks of 
 valvular disease, but of course to the President of the 
 Massachusetts Metaphysical College this was all an 
 error of mortal mind. 
 
 But the delusion did not stop here. Mrs. Eddy’s 
 house in Boston became an exaggerated. castle of 
 Otranto. Milmine has gathered together the fantasies 
 _ which afflicted the discoverer of divine science. If any- 
 thing went wrong it was “M. A. M.,” whether the 
 water-pipes froze, or the wash-boiler leaked, or the 
 servants were negligent, or the dressmaker was awk- 
 ward in fitting, or the mail went astray, or the printer 
 or the binder of Science and Health were slow; all was 
 set down to the influence of animal magnetism, “ the 
 red dragon of this hour.” 
 
 A psychological explanation of all this is now called 
 for, and Professor Jastrow gives it in a most skillful 
 manner. It should be remembered that in the Next 
 
DEMONOLOGY 113 
 
 Friend’s suit brought by Mrs. Eddy’s abandoned son 
 to test her sanity the case was compromised. The son 
 obtained a large sum of money; Mrs. Eddy obtained 
 a verdict of sanity. But, as Professor Jastrow points 
 out: 
 
 “Mrs. Eiddy’s case has been diagnosed as paranoia on 
 the basis of the documents, paranoia being a polite Greek 
 term for a marked and limited or one-sided eccentricity 
 and irresponsibility. In slang phrase its equivalent may 
 be rendered as ‘being a little off’ or ‘cranky.’ Many 
 paranoiacs are markedly and dangerously insane; quite as 
 many suffer from harmless delusions. Still others are in 
 the borderland, and except in certain relations may lead 
 outwardly responsible lives. The paranoiacs form the 
 most elusive, the most individual, the true élite of the great 
 borderland where dwell the eccentric and the ill-balanced. 
 Mrs. Eddy’s is the rare but not unique case of a religious 
 paranoiac with a following. ‘ Paranoiacs,’ writes one 
 authority, ‘form the aristocracy of asylums; indeed, the 
 majority of them have little difficulty in avoiding confine- 
 ment in them.’ Mrs. Eddy deserves a high place in this 
 aristocracy.” ® 
 
 
 
 ® Jastrow, ibid., pp. 205-206, 
 
XII 
 PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 
 
 “One phase of Mrs. Eddys mentality suggests a 
 Freudian interpretation. She was very aggressive on the 
 matter of the originality of Christsan Science as her 
 creation or special revelation. In consequence she denied 
 any obligation to Quimby and concealed the evidence of 
 her dependence. She quarreled with those who had 
 helped her and denounced them. This attitude implies the 
 subconscious sense of her dependence, even of her wmferi- 
 ority; the insistence becomes a form of compensation for 
 her incapacity. It may be traced in her writings, in her 
 relations to the Mother Church, in the incidents of her 
 life. The delusion of ‘M. A. M? is clearly related to this 
 cluster of beliefs; st expresses the ‘fear’ aspect accom- 
 panying the self-assertion by way of consolation.” 
 
 —JosEPH Jastrow, Psychology of Conviction. 
 
 doctrines and doings of Mrs. Eddy by a moderate 
 
 use of the theories of psycho-analysis. Here we 
 utilise the tempered treatment found in the invaluable 
 manual of Dr. Bernard Hart entitled, The Psychology 
 of Insanity. This, we take it, may be applied to the 
 case of the not quite insane, the neurotic individual 
 already portrayed in our chapter on the Personal 
 Sources. Most of Mrs. Eddy’s doctrines we have 
 traced to the influence of Quimby, of Alcott, of the 
 Spiritualists and to a slight extent of the Theosophists. 
 But there remains another mass of material which was 
 peculiarly her own, and that is the strange and per- 
 verted interest in the problems of marriage and sex. 
 
 i114 
 
 ie our final chapters we propose to interpret the 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 115 
 
 Under modern psycho-analysis this insistent interest 
 furnishes a veritable key to unlock the mysteries of her 
 mind. Both Quimby and Alcott touched on these prob- 
 lems, but in a more or less detached fashion; they were 
 mere speculations devoid of any specially morbid 
 symptoms. With Mrs. Eddy it was quite otherwise. 
 Her theories were part of her very life, and were what 
 is known as “ rationalisations,” or attempts to justify 
 and explain, in a series of afterthoughts, the inner and 
 outer aspects of her activities. From her earliest recol- 
 lections to her latest obsessions her writings are filled 
 with these attempts to put the best foot forward. So 
 from her various works subsequent to Science and 
 Health we have a series of curious statements written 
 to justify her excursions into the borderland problems 
 of sex. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy’s official autobiography is found in her 
 Retrospection and Introspection, the very title of which 
 furnishes testimony to her endeavour to satisfy the 
 craving for rationality. At the time of its appearance, 
 in 1891, public criticism and perhaps the stings of 
 conscience drove the author to vindicate her beliefs 
 and actions to both others and herself. These beliefs 
 and actions ranged from those early ‘“ voices not our 
 own” to her interrupted lectures on Metaphysical 
 Obstetrics. 
 
 Hogarth could portray The Rake’s Progress with a 
 bold brush, but the subject of Mrs. Eddy’s amourous 
 adventures and sentimental journeys is so ticklish that 
 it will have to be put in technical language. For this 
 purpose we utilise the vocabulary of abnormal psychol- 
 ogy and propose to give a review of the interior or 
 hidden life of the Massachusetts Mother. This study 
 will be based on her Retrospection and Introspection, 
 
ar 
 
 as 
 
 116 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 on her Miscellaneous Writings and on her remarks in 
 the early numbers of The Christian Science Journal, 
 numbers which, because of their damaging statements, 
 have been practically withdrawn from circulation. 
 Finally, corroborative evidence will be sought in the 
 testimonies of the witnesses called in the Next Friends 
 suit brought by her two sons, one of them being her 
 own, the other adopted. 
 
 For the sake of convenience we can take, in order, 
 the topics of abnormal psychology, citing such subjects 
 as amnesia, automatic writing, delusions, hallucinations 
 and obsessions,—in this way covering the entire career 
 of Mrs. Eddy, from her almost forgotten childhood to 
 that last haunting dread, malicious animal magnetism. 
 
 Amnesia is defined as forgetfulness, ranging all the 
 way from ordinary slips of memory to an apparently 
 absolute wiping out of the possibility of recalling cer- 
 tain events. The first case of amnesia is that cited in 
 Mrs. Eddy’s chapter entitled ‘‘ Early Studies.” This 
 begins with the statement that “ My father was taught 
 to believe that my brain was too large for my body, 
 and so kept me much out of school, but I gained book 
 knowledge with far less labour than is usually requi- 
 site.” Following her alleged intellectual acquisitions 
 from Lindley Murray’s Grammar to Latin, Greek and 
 Hebrew, there comes the confession that “after my 
 discovery of Christian Science, most of the knowledge 
 I gained from school books vanished like a dream. 
 Learning was so illumined, that grammar was eclipsed. 
 Etymology was divine history, voicing the idea of God 
 in man’s origin and signification. Syntax was spiritual 
 order and unity. Prosody, the song of angels, and no 
 earthly or inglorious theme.” 
 
 This fog of forgetfulness may have been a kind of 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 117 
 
 artificial smoke-screen to excuse Mrs. Eddy’s subse- 
 quent ignorance of the languages she professed once to 
 have known. For example, there was her deriving the 
 name Adam from the Latin demon, the latter, of course, 
 being a Greek word, and also her convenient way of 
 transferring Hebrew directly into English, as when she 
 interprets the land of ‘‘ Nod” to mean “ sleep.”” And 
 there is another reason that makes the alleged amnesia 
 more or less dubious. It is that two years before her 
 “‘ early studies ”’ she claimed to have heard “ voices not 
 our own.” We have already quoted part of this ac- 
 count, but more of it is called for. As she herself 
 puts it: 
 
 “Many peculiar circumstances and events connected 
 with my childhood throng the chambers of memory. For 
 some twelve months, when I was about eight years old, I 
 repeatedly heard a voice, calling me distinctly by name, 
 three times, in an ascending scale. I thought this was my 
 mother’s voice, and sometimes went to her, beseeching her 
 to tell me what she wanted. Her answer was always: 
 ‘Nothing, child! What do you mean?’ Then I would 
 say: ‘ Mother, who did call me? I heard somebody call 
 ‘Mary, three times!’ This continued until I grew dis- 
 couraged, and my mother was perplexed. and anxious.” 
 
 The above episode obviously comes under the head 
 of hallucinations, which may be roughly defined as 
 false sense impressions. For example, the patient sees 
 an object which has no real existence, or hears an 
 imaginary voice. This definition perfectly fits the 
 opening episode in Mrs. Eddy’s miraculous mission. 
 ‘But just as her amnesia was not a real amnesia, so this 
 hallucination was not a real hallucination, but simply a 
 story made up to put her on the level with the little 
 
118 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Samuel of the Old Testament. But Mrs. Eddy, here 
 as elsewhere, is clever in covering her tracks. Taken 
 by itself, this account would point to an auditory hal- 
 lucination undergone by the subject only. But on the 
 next page the narrator brings in a witness in order to 
 prove that the voice was a real voice. The account 
 continues: 
 
 “One day, when my cousin, Mehitable Huntoon, was 
 visiting us, and I sat in a little chair by her side, in the 
 same room with grandmother, the call again came, so loud 
 that Mehitable heard it, though I had ceased to notice it. 
 Greatly surprised, my cousin turned to me and said, 
 ‘Your mother is calling you!’ but I answered not, till 
 again the same call was thrice repeated. Mehitable then 
 said sharply, ‘ Why don’t you go? Your mother is calling 
 you!’ I then left the room, went to my mother, and once 
 more asked her if she had summoned me? She answered 
 as always before. ... That night, before going to rest, 
 my mother read to me the Scriptural narrative of little 
 Samuel, and bade me, when the voice called again, to reply 
 as he did, ‘ Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.’ The 
 voice came; but I was afraid, and did not answer. After- 
 ward I wept, and prayed that God would forgive me, re- 
 solving to do, next time, as my mother had bidden me. 
 When the call came again I did answer, in the words of 
 Samuel, but never again to the material senses was that 
 mysterious call repeated.” 
 
 We cannot quote this account in full, as it is copy- 
 righted. But enough has been given to make us doubt 
 one-half of that account. We know that, later in life, 
 Mrs. Eddy suffered from visual and tactual hallucina- 
 tions. She saw eyes glaring at her in the dark, she felt 
 evil spirits manhandling her. It is, therefore, quite 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 119 
 
 probable that she did hear voices, but we cannot agree 
 that they were ‘not her own.” Just as one can hear 
 an alarm clock by expectant attention before it goes 
 off, or turn some vague sounds into persons talking, so 
 a more or less neurotic character can fancy that she 
 hears supernatural voices. The thing is a common- 
 place in religious history and precisely the same thing 
 happened to young Joseph Smith, the founder of Mor- 
 monism. Little Samuel has certainly had a large 
 number of imitators. 
 
 We next turn to automatic writing. In the case of 
 auditory hallucination little Mehitable was never put 
 on the witness stand and was never interviewed, but 
 on this new topic we will find that the chief witness 
 was interviewed by Miss Milmine, whose testimony is 
 reliable, though her knowledge of the psychological 
 meaning of automatic writing is inadequate. In May, 
 1864, Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Patterson, went to visit 
 her friend and fellow-patient, Mrs. Sarah G. Crosby, 
 at Albion, Maine. Mrs. Crosby, who was a stenog- 
 rapher in the Maine courts, narrates the following 
 peculiar episode: One day she and Mrs. Patterson sat 
 together at opposite sides of the same table. Suddenly 
 Mrs. Patterson leaned backward, shivered, closed her 
 eyes, and began to talk in a sepulchral, mannish voice. 
 The voice said that “he” was Albert Baker, Mrs. 
 Patterson’s brother. ‘‘ He” had been trying, the voice 
 continued, to get control of Mrs. Patterson for many 
 days. ‘“‘ He” wished to warn Mrs. Crosby against put- 
 ting such entire confidence in Mrs. Patterson... . 
 Several times, in the course of this visit, Mrs. Patterson 
 went into trances. In one of these, Albert Baker’s 
 spirit told Mrs. Crosby that if, from time to time, she 
 would look under the cushion of a particular chair, she 
 
120 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 would find important written. communications from 
 him. Mrs. Crosby following the injunction, dis- 
 covered now and then a letter. One of these is inter- 
 esting chiefly as containing Albert Baker’s spiritistic 
 endorsement of P. P. Quimby. The text is as 
 follows: 
 
 “Sarah, dear, Be ye calm in reliance on self, amid all 
 the changes of natural yearnings, of too keen a sense of 
 earth joys, of too great struggle between the material and 
 spiritual. Be calm or you will rend your mortal and your 
 experience which is needed for your spiritual progress 
 lost, till taken up without the proper sphere and your 
 spirit trials more severe. This is why all things are work- 
 ing for good to those who suffer and they must look not 
 upon the things which are seen but upon those which do 
 not appear. P. Quimby, of Portland, has the spiritual 
 truth of disease. You must imbibe it to be healed. Go to 
 him again and lean on no material or spiritual medium. 
 In that path of truth I first found you. Dear one, I am 
 at present no aid to you although you think I am, but your 
 spirit will not at present bear this quickening or ’twill 
 leave the body; hence I leave you till you ripen into a 
 condition to meet me. You will miss me at first, but 
 afterwards grow more tranquil because of it, which is 
 important that you may live for yourself and children. 
 Love and care for poor sister a great suffering lies before 
 her, 
 
 The authenticity of the above account is verified by 
 two things. First, a reproduction in facsimile of the 
 “spirit message,” and the fact that Milmine entirely 
 misconceived its significance. Its production was a 
 case of decentralisation or dissociation, when the mind 
 
 
 
 + Milmine, pp. 66-67. 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 121 
 
 loses control of its normal activities or is split up 
 into two or more personalities. The fact that Quimby 
 is given an unexpected testimonial substantiates the 
 well known phenomenon that subconscious confessions 
 are often true. For a further explanation of the epi- 
 sode we may have recourse to the expert psychologist. 
 Dr. Bernard Hart speaks of automatic writing as a 
 curious condition which, although occasionally ex- 
 hibited by comparatively normal people, attained its 
 most perfect development in a form of mental disorder 
 known as hysteria. Here, in the first place, the patient 
 is quite unaware of what his hand is writing, or even 
 of the fact that it is in movement. Secondly, the per- 
 sonality has no power to direct what the hand shall 
 write, or to alter in any way the train of ideas which it 
 is expressing. Automatic writing has played a large 
 part in the history of spiritualism and has been attrib- 
 uted by supporters of that doctrine to the activity of 
 some spiritual being who avails himself of the patient’s 
 hand in order to manifest to the world his desires and 
 opinions. There is no need, however, to resort to fan- 
 tastic hypotheses of this type, and the explanation of 
 the phenomenon is comparatively simple. <A dissoci- 
 ation has taken place. The field of consciousness is 
 divided into two distinct parts, one engaged in conver- 
 sation, the other comprising the systems of ideas which 
 are finding expression in the automatic writing. Each 
 portion carries on complicated mental processes, and 
 yet each is not only independent of the other, but 
 totally unaware of that other’s existence. The patient’s 
 mind seems, in fact, to be split into two smaller minds, 
 engaged in two different occupations, making use of 
 two distinct sets of memories, and without any relation 
 whatever, one to the other. Such a case, therefore, pro- 
 
122 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 vides us with a most perfect example of dissociation of 
 consciousness.” 
 
 Milmine’s comment on the Crosby case of automatic 
 writing is that it seems remarkable that “ Albert ” 
 should select his own sister through whom to warn 
 Mrs. Crosby against her. To the psychologist this is 
 not so remarkable, but would be a case where the asso- 
 ciation indicates the presence of a mental “ conflict ” 
 and acquires the significance of a defensive reaction 
 adopted by the mind when confronted with two incom- 
 patible systems of ideas. 
 
 Now, under the term “ conflict ” we have a new con- 
 ception which enables us to understand much of the 
 mental life of the seeress of Lynn. Conflict is defined 
 as “a struggle between the complex and the personal- 
 ity—complex in turn being described as a dominant 
 though subconscious interest, and personality denoting 
 all the mental processes—ideas, emotions, desires— 
 which do not belong to the complex in question.”” In 
 the Crosby case the conflict was solved in a negative 
 way,—the mind of Mrs. Eddy ridding itself of the 
 emotional tension by avoiding the conflict altogether. 
 On the one hand we have the record of Mrs. Eddy’s 
 spiritualistic trances; on the other we have her express 
 denial: ‘‘ We never were a Spiritualist.” This is the 
 first of the methods described by Dr. Hart, and con- 
 sists of the simple expedient of preserving both the 
 opposing groups of ideas in the mind, while at the same 
 time all contact or interaction between them is sedu- 
 lously avoided. This is the common mechanism of 
 “the logic-tight compartment,” where two spheres of 
 action are kept rigidly apart in the mind. 
 
 
 
 « * Hart, pp. 42-45. 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 123 
 
 Now, in Mrs. Eddy’s career there is an abundance 
 of such negative instances, and it is the psychologist’s 
 business to expose these discrepancies in her state- 
 ments. She practised the spiritualistic trance and de- 
 nied that; she copied the term Christian Science from 
 Quimby and denied that; she borrowed from Alcott 
 and others and claimed that no other author had 
 helped her; she announced that she taught the truth 
 ‘“‘ without money and without price,” but she charged 
 three hundred dollars for six lectures in ‘“‘ Metaphys- 
 ical Obstetrics”; she taught this subject until the 
 Massachusetts Metaphysical College was closed, and 
 yet insisted that the motto of her church was Purity. 
 
 These instances—and there are more of them—illus- 
 trate the well known antithesis between precept and 
 practice, the common mechanism of the ‘“ logic-tight 
 compartment,’’—in a word, dissociation. Now, dissoci- 
 ation indicates the presence of a mental conflict, and 
 has such varying grades as somnambulism, double per- 
 sonality, obsessions, hallucinations and delusions. 
 
 All these grades are illustrated in the career of Mrs. 
 Eddy. That she was a somnambulist or sleepwalker is 
 a charitable explanation for the fact that, at least once, 
 she is recorded as having appeared in mixed company 
 in the state of extreme déshabille—to put it mildly. 
 Here the “ insufficient clothing dream ” is one of the 
 commonest forms of nightmare, which in this case was 
 not a mere process of mentality, but of objective actu- 
 ality. With this incident should be compared the 
 Eddyite theory of the dream which is thus summed up 
 in Science and Health: ‘The parent of all human dis- 
 cord is the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which origi- 
 nated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded 
 from and passed into matter.” Now, the “allegory 
 
124 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 of Adam,” as Mrs. Eddy writes in Christian Healing, 
 “when spiritually understood, explains this dream of 
 material life, even the dream of the ‘ deep sleep’ that 
 fell upon Adam when the spiritual senses were hushed 
 by material sense that before had claimed audience 
 with a serpent.” * 
 
 Upon the topics of dream and sleep, as the official 
 concordance shows, the founder of Christian Science 
 wrote at great length. And almost always these topics 
 come around to the allegory of Adam, while in turn this 
 is interpreted in terms of the sex problem,—Adam and 
 Eve and the Serpent being all tangled up in a perfect 
 Freudian nightmare. Here is the account as given in 
 the chapter entitled Creation: 
 
 “Error, named Adam, is the belief, or alpha and omega 
 of what is termed Life in matter. When mortal belief 
 says an egg produces a man, this condition becomes as 
 fixed and imperative as the original one of a rib. . . . Do 
 you say man was formed before knowing his origin, then 
 wherefore any belief on this subject? ... Adam being 
 created before Eve, proves the maternal egg never propa- 
 gated him, and Eve being formed of Adam’s rib, shows 
 her origin was not that; ‘ knowledge’ defined man falsely 
 then, even as at present; although physiology has since 
 been grafted into the forbidden tree.” # 
 
 From somnambulism to sex may seem a far cry, but 
 the study of repressed complexes furnishes the inter- 
 mediate links under the captions of double personality, 
 obsessions, hallucinations, and delusions. We shall, 
 therefore, take up these topics in order and find if they 
 
 
 
 ® Compare Christian Science pamphlet, Awake Thou That Sleep- 
 est. Section, Sleep. Boston, 1917. 
 4 Science and Health (Ast ed.), Chapter, Creation, pp. 277, 279. 
 
 ; 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 125 
 
 do not put method into the madness of Eddyism, and 
 explain, as nothing else can, the strange and apparently 
 incoherent account of Mrs. Eddy’s retrospective and 
 introspective life. 
 
 In our first search for the personal sources we hinted 
 that the doctrine of dissociation, or the divided self, 
 would illuminate many of the dubious problems of 
 Eddyism. Such we now take to be the fact, for under 
 the new definition we obtain a guiding thread in the 
 seeming labyrinth of disconnected events and beliefs. 
 Dissociation of consciousness, says Hart, arises when 
 the continuity in the scheme of consciousness is sud- 
 denly broken across. The content of consciousness, 
 immediately after the break, would then be absolutely 
 ‘independent of the content of consciousness in the mo- 
 ments preceding that break. Here the dissociated 
 processes correspond to the effect obtained by abruptly 
 breaking off one film in a moving picture and replacing 
 it by another representing an altogether different 
 subject.? 3 
 
 This splitting off of ideas was first evident in Mrs. 
 Eddy’s career in her automatic “ spirit ” writing, where 
 in the trance state there was a splitting off of a system 
 of ideas—the spirit message. Another instance is 
 where Mrs. Rice attended Mrs. Eddy in her violent 
 seizures of hysteria. This student declares that during 
 these attacks the poor woman would often le uncon- 
 scious for hours together; at other times she would 
 seem almost insane, would denounce all her friends and 
 declare that they were all persecuting and annoying 
 her.° This case, occurring at Lynn, in 1875, fits per- 
 fectly the definition that a system of ideas is said to be 
 
 os 
 
 ° Hart, op. cit., pp. 46, 47. 
 ° Milmine, p. 159. 
 
126 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 dissociated when it is divorced from the personality, 
 and when its course and development are exempt from 
 the control of the personality. Furthermore, dissoci- 
 ation has other symptoms. The next in order comes 
 that of obsession. Here the personality, as Hart says, 
 is aware of the existence of the dissociated system, but 
 is aware of it as something outside of and foreign to 
 itself. In the case of Mrs. Eddy one example was 
 what she called “‘ voices not our own’; another is the 
 belief in malicious animal magnetism where the victim 
 is convinced that the “evil one” is turning her dis- 
 ciples away from her in her “ hour of crucifixion.”* A 
 further example is Mrs. Eddy’s belief that her third 
 husband died from “ arsenical poison mentally admin- 
 istered,” despite the evidence of the autopsy—the dis- 
 sected heart of the deceased. This perfectly fits Hart’s 
 definition of delusion as a false belief which is imper- 
 vious to the most complete logical demonstration of its 
 impossibility, and unshaken by the presence of incom- 
 patible or obviously contradictory facts. 
 
 We have anticipated, but with a purpose. Inter- 
 mediate between obsessions and delusions come hallu- 
 cinations. But these we propose to leave till the last, 
 in order to explain the most abnormal of Mrs. Eddy’s 
 psychic states,—her sex hallucinations late in life. 
 Continuing, then, with delusions, we find two well 
 known types, the grandiose and the persecutory. The 
 first finds illustration in Mrs. Eddy’s career all the way 
 from the ridiculous to the blasphemous,—from claims 
 of noble ancestry to claims of equality with the founder 
 of Christianity. In tracing her family tree—though 
 she did not theoretically believe in ‘“‘ the maternal egg ”’ 
 
 
 
 “Compare facsimile letter to Mrs. Augusta E. Stetson, Religious 
 Advertisement, The New York Times, March 26, 1922. 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 12% 
 
 —Mrs. Eddy makes claim that even the American 
 College of Heralds would find hard to validate. She 
 may have been descended from Hannah Moore, but the 
 English poetess must have had a Cockney strain, for 
 Mrs. Eddy makes “shade” rhyme with “ pride.” ® 
 But she was not descended from “ the late Sir John 
 MacNeil, a Scotch knight who was prominent in British 
 politics and at one time held the position of ambassador 
 to Persia.” This claim was published in Retrospection 
 and Introspection, and is a fine illustration of the latter 
 part of that title. Unfortunately it was contradicted 
 by the laird’s only married grandchild, who emphat- 
 ically stated that “‘ Mrs. Eddy is certainly not my 
 daughter,” and added that she was “‘ much amused to 
 find that Mrs. Eddy still uses my grandfather’s coat- 
 of-arms on her writing paper, including the motto of 
 the Bath, which even his son, had he left one, would 
 have no right to use, as the G. C. B. is for life only.” ® 
 But little things like that did not matter to one who 
 propounded the proposition that “ gender is embraced 
 in spirit,” and that “an egg is not the origin of man.” 
 This ridiculous delusion of high ancestry—unless it 
 was plain imposture—was matched by other grandiose 
 delusions. Here, as Hart puts it, the patient believes 
 himself to be some exalted personage, or to possess 
 some other attribute which raises him far above the 
 level of his fellows. He may believe, for example, that 
 he is the king, or a millionaire, or a great inventor. In 
 some cases, no actual delusions are expressed, but the 
 exaggerated sense of self-importance is betrayed by 
 affectations of gait and manner, by the employment of 
 
 
 
 8 See Mrs. Eddy’s Lines on Finding a Wild Rose. 
 ®Compare Milmine, Appendix A. Also the Stetson letter last 
 quoted, which still uses the McNeil crest. 
 
128 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 a fantastical pedantic phraseology, or by other similar 
 manifestations.’° 
 
 The parts of this description fit precisely into the 
 case of Mrs. Eddy. Taking them in reverse order she 
 showed both the minor and major symptoms of the de- 
 lusion of grandeur. Her pedantic phraseology is what 
 makes Science and Health one of: America’s chief 
 works of humour. She uses big words where small 
 might do. Here, for example, is her description of a 
 baby’s bath: 
 
 “An infant a few hours old was said to be immersed in 
 water, to test the possibility of making him amphibious; 
 and this daily ablution continued until the infant could 
 remain under water, and the ordinary functions of lungs 
 be suspended twenty minutes at one time, playing the 
 while and enjoying the bath.” 14 
 
 For other examples we need not go far. A few pages 
 before the description of the amphibious baby there 
 occurs this bit of natural science: 
 
 “Heaven and earth, together with every animal, min- 
 eral, and vegetable that God hath made, are harmonious 
 and eternal. The belief of Life in matter produces its 
 own kind, for it is predicated on error, that brings forth 
 that which is sinful, ferocious, impure, and mortal. 
 Vertebrates, articulates, mollusks and radiates are simply 
 what mind makes them. They are technicalised mortality, 
 that will disappear when the radiates of Spirit illumine 
 sense, and destroy forever the belief of Life and Intelli- 
 gence in matter.” }° 
 
 
 
 Hart, op. cit., p. 31. 
 “Science and Health (1st ed.), p. 279. 
 8 Tbid., p. 270. 
 
 ae ae 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 129 
 
 Besides ‘‘a fantastic pedantic phraseology,” there 
 were “ affectations of gait and manner.” Milmine de- 
 scribes how Mrs. Eddy always put on airs in her visits 
 to her early friends, yet always forgot to peel the 
 potatoes in return for her board. And the writer of 
 this chapter has often seen the “ Pastor Emeritus ” in 
 Concord bowing from her carriage like royalty at a 
 review. Now, this exaggerated sense of self-importance 
 merged into the major symptom of delusion of grand- 
 eur. We need but change the gender of the pronouns 
 in Hart’s description and it fits like a glove: ‘‘ The 
 patient believes herself to be some exalted personage, 
 or to possess some other attribute which raises her far 
 above the level of ier followers.”” What could be more 
 apt to explain the growing delusion of grandeur which 
 persisted through the life of a woman who claimed to 
 be the first to affix the name science to Christianity, to 
 have taken nothing from other writers, to possess 
 “mind reading or spiritual insight ” as a divine gift, to 
 have been “ graciously prepared ” by God for her mis- 
 sion, to have claimed equality with another Mary, to 
 have put herself by the side of Christ in a stained glass 
 window, to have referred to her “ hour of crucifixion,” 
 and to have prepared for her resurrection by having a 
 telephone put in the temporary vault that was to re- 
 ceive her body! *° 
 
 Of course there were other religious leaders, im- 
 ported and domestic, who have shown these symptoms. 
 There was Mother Ann Lee, who, ‘“‘ by special revela- 
 tion,” was directed to repair to America, and received 
 the Divine promise that the Millennial Church would 
 be established in this country. There was also 
 
 
 
 1° The last statement is based on information from one of the 
 attendants at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. 
 
130 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of Mormonism, who de- 
 scribed himself as Prophet, Seer and Revelator and 
 Head of the Latter-Day Saints. But neither of these 
 New Hampshire worthies could equal that other native 
 daughter of the granite state. Mother Ann did not 
 copyright her claim; while Joseph Smith gave an occa- 
 sional wink of his eye as when showing off his mummy 
 of ‘ Father Abraham.” No, the founder of Christian 
 Science took herself much more seriously. She was 
 above helping in the family wash of her poor hosts. 
 She was above having poor parishioners,—because pov- 
 erty was not a ‘“‘ demonstration ” of divine favour—and 
 to Mrs. Stetson she bequeathed her “crown of dia- 
 monds breast-pin,” a miniature in a setting of forty 
 diamonds.** 
 
 If these things seem incredible we refer the reader 
 to that perfect mine of abnormal psychology, Retro- 
 spection and Introspection. In the chapter entitled 
 “ Foundation Work,” we read: ‘‘ Bethlehem and Beth- 
 any, Gethsemane and Calvary, spoke to my chastened 
 sense by the tearful lips of a babe. Frozen fountains 
 were unsealed. LErudite systems of philosophy and 
 religion melted, for Love unveiled the healing promise 
 and potency of a present spiritual afflatus.” If “ our 
 dear Mother in God ” did not suffer from delusions of 
 grandeur, nobody ever did. But such delusions, as 
 Hart explains, are almost invariably accompanied by 
 delusions of persecution. The patient cannot conceal 
 from himself that his claims to exalted rank and posi- 
 tion are not recognised by his environment, but he 
 
 
 
 *% Compare letter of October 3, 1904, quoted in The New York 
 Times, March 26, 1922, For a facsimile of this highly flattering 
 miniature see Augusta E. Stetson, Reminiscences, Sermons and 
 Correspondence, p. 2. New York, 1913. 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 131 
 
 rationalises this failure of recognition by persuading 
 himself that it is the work of a malignant and envious 
 enemy. In this way the most complicated delusional 
 systems may arise, the patient being convinced that 
 more and more elaborate persecutions are being em- 
 ployed the more he meets with evidence contradicting 
 the primary belief.” 
 
 For illustrations of this extreme example of dissoci- 
 ation we need but go back to the chapter on Demon- 
 ology. This was written at a crisis in Mrs. Eddy’s 
 career. Her claims were meeting with contradiction. 
 Richard Kennedy had left her; Daniel Spofford had 
 doubted her claims;*® Wallace W. Wright, in The Lynn 
 Transcript, publicly challenged Mrs. Glover to verify 
 her claims to restore the dead, to walk upon the water, 
 to live twenty-four hours without air, to restore sight 
 when the optic nerve has been destroyed, to set and 
 heal a broken bone without the aid of artificial means.1" 
 Upon these doubters and sceptics Mrs. Eddy now 
 poured out the vials of her wrath and the following 
 year appeared those hysterical denunciations already 
 quoted under Demonology. It should here be added 
 that in her chapter entitled The Precious Volume, Mrs. 
 Eddy speaks of a certain reluctance to give the public, 
 in the first edition of Science and Health, the chapter 
 on Animal Magnetism, and the divine purpose that this 
 should not be done.'® But it was done in the third edi- 
 tion, and by 1881 we have all that talk about “ lurking 
 demonology, dark channels, hidden agents, fatal pow- 
 ers, silent mental processes to frighten the individual, 
 
 
 
 4 Bernard Hart, of. cit., p. 87-88. 
 1® Compare a letter to the writer, October 11, 1921: “ Personally, 
 I never knew of her benefitting any person through treatment.” 
  Milmine, p. 151. 
 ' 8 Retrospection and Introspection, p. 46. 
 
132 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 terrible deeds of the mental outlaw, secret mental 
 assassins, and Satan let loose.” ‘These phrases were 
 lavished upon the first apostate from the church and 
 are referred to as “‘ the crimes of that student which 
 have gone forth on their errands of envy and revenge.” 
 
 Now, these wild theories, taken in connection with 
 Mrs. Eddy’s beliefs in the efficiency of M. A. M. over 
 frozen water-pipes, leaking wash-boilers, missent let- 
 ters and the like, illustrate to perfection what Dr. Hart 
 says as to the second or persecutory type of delusion, 
 with its important variety, the ‘‘ delusion of reference.” 
 The patient misconstrues every event which happens in 
 his environment, however trivial it may be, believes 
 that it is directly bound up with his fate, and that it is 
 in some way designed to injure him. If he observes 
 two of his fellows talking together he immediately 
 assumes that he is the subject of their conversation, 
 and every accidental misfortune is regarded as a de- 
 liberate attempt to annoy him. Sometimes this miscon- 
 struction is carried to lengths which are fantastically 
 absurd; a trifling displacement of the furniture of the 
 patient’s room is thought to be a signal employed by 
 his enemies, and a spot upon his dinner-plate is proof 
 positive that poison is being introduced into his food.’ 
 
 But this is not all. In many cases of delusions of 
 persecution, continues Dr. Hart, the desires are pro- 
 jected into an individual who has no real existence. 
 The patient’s mind, in its struggle to obtain freedom 
 from internal conflict, invents not only the man’s con- 
 duct, but the man himself. This more complicated 
 form of projection is a common occurrence, and the 
 female patient who indignantly complains of the vio- 
 
 
 
 * Hart, op. cit., p. 32. 
 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 133 
 
 lent wooing to which she is subjected by some alto- 
 gether imaginary man is to be found in every asylum. 
 Into this similar infirmity of Mrs. Eddy’s mind we 
 cannot enter without preliminary study, and this will 
 be furnished by her views on marriage and sex. 
 
XIII 
 MARRIAGE AND SEX 
 
 “ The doctrine of celibacy has, of course, been prevalent 
 amongst mystics of all ages. There are several celibate 
 religious communities in America; one of the Shaker Set- 
 tlements was situated only a few miles from Tilton, where 
 much of Mrs. Eddy’s youth was passed. Mrs. Eddy 
 differs from most mystics in allowing marriage as a tem- 
 porary arrangement, pending the sntroduction of a purely 
 spiritual generation.”—FRANK PopMmorE, The Pedigree of 
 Christian Science. 
 
 T is a truism in the psychology of religion that 
 | aberrant theological doctrines are often eroto- 
 genetic, that is, connected with abnormal sexual 
 doctrines. It was so with Mother Ann Lee and the 
 Shakers, it was so with Joseph Smith and the Mor- 
 mons, it was so with Andrew Jackson Davis and the 
 spiritualists, all of whom had ultimately to run the 
 gauntlet of public criticism of their principles and prac- 
 tices. Of these three sects the first was celibate, the 
 second polygamous, while the last, in striving to “ spir- 
 itualise ” marriage, ran off into “ free love.” All were 
 variants of abnormal religions and Mrs. Eddy vacil- 
 lated between them all. Her relations with her three 
 husbands, various disciples and several “ secretaries,” 
 have from the first been matters of suspicion, and some ~ 
 have charged her with a kind of progressive polygamy, 
 or rather androgyny. 
 Into these alleged practices it is difficult to enter 
 
 134 
 
MARRIAGE AND SEX 135 
 
 because we have no such abundance of personal docu- 
 ments as exist in the case of the Shakers and Mormons. 
 But with the theories we can deal, and deal frankly. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy was obsessed on the subject of sex and that '’ 
 
 from her earliest appearance in print. Laying aside 
 the testimony of various families into which she en- 
 tered only to cause dissension, we note that her Port- 
 land testimonial of 1862 mentioned the bi-sexual theory 
 of Plato, that the chapter Recapitulation attempts to 
 refute the theory and that Science and Health has an 
 entire chapter devoted to the subject of marriage. 
 Alongside of these statements are to be placed certain 
 
 facts regarding the founder: that as Mrs. Glover she’ < 
 
 was an unnatural mother, farming out her infant son 
 only to have him return some thirty years later when 
 he learned how much money was being made by the 
 real head of the family. Some of this money was made 
 in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, which 
 claimed to have taught 4,000 pupils at $300 a head, 
 and where, at any rate, such high fees were charged 
 for the course in ‘“‘ metaphysical obstetrics ” that some 
 of the students brought suit to recover what they had 
 spent for these useless lessons. 
 
 Moreover, Mrs. Eddy’s use of sexual terms in her 
 writing is noticeable. For example, malicious animal 
 magnetism is called “‘ mental malpractice”; the beget- 
 ting of offspring in a “ spiritual” way is called agamo- 
 genesis (when it should be parthenogenesis), while the 
 virgin birth is confused with immaculate conception. 
 But what were the secret teachings of the class of 
 “metaphysical obstetricians’? We now know, through 
 the confession of one of Mrs. Eddy’s students, just as a 
 congressional committee learned the inner meaning of 
 the Mormon “ mysteries ” through the confession of 
 
 — 
 
186 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 one of Brigham Young’s apostate daughters. To put 
 it in the mildest way, Mrs. Eddy was a woman un- 
 fortunate in her marriages after “the fleshly mind,” 
 who sought a change in the so-called “ spiritual ” union 
 of soul. It was evidently her own, her personal hope 
 that ‘“‘ The time cometh when marriage will be a union 
 of hearts; and again, the time cometh when there will 
 be no marrying or giving in marriage, but we shall be 
 as the angels; the Soul rejoicing in its own mate 
 ‘wherein the masculine Wisdom and feminine Love are 
 embraced in the understanding.” * 
 
 We have a right to call this kind of teaching a species 
 ‘of speculative disease, but as in diagnosing a disease, 
 symptoms are supplemented by the history of the 
 patient, so here. We must have recourse to certain 
 antecedent mental conditions. These conditions were 
 furnished by the very purlieus of thought in which 
 Mrs. Eddy early found herself. We have mentioned 
 already the influence of spiritualists and theosophists, 
 but it was particularly the Shakers who, under the guise 
 of religion, put forward the wildest hypotheses as to the 
 sex relations in the heavens above and the earth be- 
 neath. For the Shakers the start is the dual nature of 
 deity; the middle is the so-called spiritual union of the 
 sexes; the end is that form of occultism which runs off 
 into sex symbolism, like Mrs. Eddy’s interpretation of 
 “devil ” as “the lust of the flesh.” We are not here 
 concerned with the charge of breaking up of families, a 
 charge against which Mother Eddy so strenuously 
 fought. We merely infer that where there was so much 
 smoke, there must have been some fire. 
 
 As for the Shakers, Mother Ann Lee was notorious 
 
 
 
 1 Science and Health (Ast ed.), p. 322. Marriage. 
 
 
 
MARRIAGE AND SEX 137 
 
 for teaching both the dual nature of deity and the 
 necessity of celibacy. The logical connection between 
 the two is hard to trace, but the doctrines are in fact 
 bound together. From the official accounts we learn 
 that the United Society of Believers acknowledged 
 Mother Ann Lee as the first visible leader of the 
 Church of God upon the earth; that she represented 
 the female principle of deity and that a virgin life is a 
 life of purity undefiled by sinful indulgences, and un- 
 mixed with corrupt practices.? As further expanded 
 in the articles of faith the Shakers tell us: 
 
 “ As Father, God is the infinite Fountain of intelligence, 
 and the Source of all power—‘the Almighty, great and 
 terrible in majesty’; ‘the high and lofty one, that inhabit- 
 eth eternity, whose name is Holy, dwelling in the high and 
 holy place’; and ‘a consuming fire.’ But, as Mother, 
 “God ts love’ and tenderness. If all the maternal affec- 
 tions of all the female or bearing spirits in animated nature 
 were combined together, and then concentrated in one imdi- 
 vidual human female, that person would be but as a type 
 or image of our Eternal Heavenly Mother. 
 
 “ The duality of God is expressed in the Book of Gene- 
 sis as follows: ‘ Let us make man in our image, after our 
 likeness. So God created man in his own image ; male and 
 female created He them; and called their name Adam.’ ” 
 
 Such is the official platform of Shakerism, and with 
 it should be compared the Eddyite chapter on Creation, 
 which likewise treats of the duality of deity and the 
 creation of Adam. Here, says Mrs. Eddy: “ Gender 
 is embraced in Spirit, else God would never have 
 shadowed forth out of Himself, the idea of male and 
 
 
 
 2 The Life and Gospel Experience of Mother Ann Lee, p. 521. 
 Published by the Shakers. Canterbury, New Hampshire. 
 
138 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 female; this idea comes from soul and not body, from 
 Principle and not person. . . . “So God created man 
 in His own image, male and female created He them.” 
 Hereby we learn, man was a generic term; also that he 
 reflected the Principle of male and female, was the 
 likeness of “ Us,” the compound Principle that made 
 man.° 
 
 In making these comparisons we should recall the 
 facts of Mrs. Eddy’s life early and late: that in her 
 youth she passed some years in the vicinity of the 
 Shakers, who also had their Key to the Scriptures, and 
 that to the last she insisted that deity should be ad- 
 dressed as “‘ Our Father-Mother God.” 
 
 The two Shaker books from which I have quoted 
 were written near Mrs. Eddy’s home and before her 
 first marriage. She may also have had other than liter- 
 _ ary sources to depend on. Her brother worked in the 
 law office of General Franklin Pierce, who was counsel 
 for the Shakers in their trial at Concord, in November, 
 1848. To those who care to go further into the affini- 
 ties between esoteric Christian Science and Shakerism, 
 the chapter on “ Marriage,” in the first edition of 
 Science and Health, should be compared with “ Holy 
 Mother’s promises given by Inspiration,” as contained 
 in the Report of the Examination of the Shakers of 
 Canterbury and Enfield before the New Hampshire 
 Legislature. 
 
 But the Shakers did more than propound grotesque 
 theological doctrines. With the dual nature of deity 
 they connected another theory, that of the celibate 
 spiritual union of the sexes, on other planes beside the 
 procreative. To this they added—as a kind of “ ra- 
 
 
 
 ® Science and Health, (1st ed.), p. 236. 
 
 
 
MARRIAGE AND SEX 139 
 
 tionalisation ””—the popular but erroneous notion of 
 the virginity of the queen bee. So it was with Mrs. 
 Eddy; these various points are repeated in almost the 
 same phraseology. She speaks of the eternal “ Us”; 
 of man or woman as “ the compound idea that includes 
 all other ideas of God”; of the “ spiritual creation ” 
 where the “union of the male and female is appre- 
 hended in its Soul-sense,” and concludes with this 
 “rationalising ” passage as to ‘‘important points in 
 what is termed embryotic life; the butterfly, bee, etc., 
 propagating their species without the male element.” * 
 
 ‘The duality of deity, the spiritual union of the sexes, | 
 and sex symbolism—this threefold similarity between 
 Shakerism and Eddyism is manifest.) We now need a 
 psychological explanation of these strange doctrines. 
 What has recently been given for Mother Ann Lee will 
 serve for Mother Eddy. Of course the lame excuse 
 may be given that the author of Science and Health 
 used words without knowing their meaning, as when 
 she accused a hated rival of being an “ adulteress ” 
 because she ‘‘ adulterated ” the truth. 
 
 This sorry jest opens up the sorry subject of the 
 sexual aberrations connected with abnormal religious 
 beliefs. The New York Medical Journal has recently 
 published an interesting study entitled Shaker Celibacy 
 and Shaker Salacity Psychologically Interpreted? In 
 this study there is an instructive blending of the of- 
 ficial accounts with psycho-analytic comment. Thus, 
 by her followers, Ann Lee was considered a sort of 
 female incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth and her divine 
 perfection was implied in the familiar appellation of 
 
 
 
 *Compare Platform XVI, XII and Science and Health (Ast 
 ed.), pp. 262, 314. 
 °* By Theodore Schroeder, June 1, 1921. 
 
140 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Ann the Word. She was the Word made flesh. She 
 was the woman, so they asserted, referred to by the 
 apostle as being ‘‘ clothed with the Sun.” ° 
 
 Now, continues the psycho-analyst, those who are 
 inhibited from a normally satisfying sexual life easily 
 make a virtue of their misfortune, and achieve a com- 
 pensation by means of the so-called supernormal or 
 superhuman exaltation of their spirituality. . . . This 
 is accomplished by the simple trick of adopting a new 
 and spiritual explanation for commonplace facts of the 
 neuro-sexual organism. But the subjective emotional 
 conflict is not thus eliminated. Consequently, the vic- 
 tims of this sort of self-deception may become very 
 vehement in their denunciation of the normal relation, 
 as well as very morbid in their desires for gratification.‘ 
 
 Thus far this description runs parallel to the experi- 
 ences of Mrs. Eddy. Exaltation and symbolism were 
 exemplified in the picture of the upper room at Lynn 
 where the star of inspiration shone in at the window 
 and the serpent lurked in the corner.® So with the spir- 
 itual explanation of the sexual relation, and the de- 
 nunciation of the normal relation. Even the recent 
 editions of Science and Health in the chapter on Mar- 
 riage speak of “the vision of the Apocalypse, where 
 the corporeal sense of creation was cast out, and its 
 spiritual sense was revealed from Heaven.” ® 
 
 For a further disclosure of Mrs. Eddy’s attitude 
 towards the sex problem we need but turn to her Key 
 to the Scriptures. Here, as the psycho-analyst would 
 put it in the case of Mother Ann Lee, who also had her 
 
 
 
 ®*Compare the stained glass window of “The Woman Clothed 
 with the Sun,” in the Mother Church, Boston. 
 
 7 Schroeder, p. 10. 
 
 ® This serpent was later removed from the allegorical picture. 
 
 ° Science and Health (1914), pp. 56-63. 
 
MARRIAGE AND SEX 141 
 
 Key to the Scriptures, we find side by side the corre- 
 lated influence of her abnormal sex conditions with her 
 religious emotions and the theology built upon them. 
 In the Eddyite key to the book of Genesis we are in- 
 formed that God determines the gender of His own 
 ideas; that the eternal Elohim includes the forever 
 universe and man the family name of all ideas,—the 
 sons and daughters of God; that man and woman as 
 co-existent and eternal with God forever reflect, in 
 glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God; that 
 in divine Science we have not as much authority for 
 considering God masculine, as we have to consider 
 Him feminine; that it is a “ biological invention ” 
 that in the beginning man’s body originated in non- 
 intelligent dust and that God at first created one man 
 unaided,—that is, Adam—but afterwards required the 
 union of the two sexes in order to create the rest of the 
 human family; that woman was the first to abandon 
 the belief in the material origin of man and to discover 
 spiritual creation; that the Science of Mind shows that 
 the multiplication of certain animals takes place apart 
 from sexual conditions; that it is forsaking Spirit as 
 the divine origin of creative Truth to come down to a 
 belief in the material origin of man, the belief that the 
 germ of humanity is in a circumscribed and non- 
 intelligent egg; that if Life is God, as the Scriptures 
 imply, then life is not embryonic, it is infinite, an egg 
 being an impossible enclosure for deity; and that mor- 
 tals must emerge from this notion of material life as 
 all-in-all; “they must peck open their shells with 
 Christian Science and look outward and upward.” 7° 
 The Eddyite Key to the Scriptures is evidently a 
 
 
 
 Key to the Scriptures, passim. 
 
142 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 kind of speculative incubator; by reading it and its 
 rubrics about “ Scientific Offspring,” ‘‘ All nativity in 
 Thought ” and the like, the believer can get rid of “‘ the 
 Adam belief of which mortal and material life is the 
 dream.” Of course, to the material sense, Adam was 
 made from the dust and Eve from Adam’s rib, but this 
 was an “‘ erroneous standpoint,” since the translators of 
 this record of scientific creation entertained “a false 
 sense of being ”’: to them, Genesis, like the Apocalypse, 
 was “‘ obscure,” but “ to the author they are transpar- 
 ent, for they contain the deep divinity of the Bible.” ™* 
 
 Possessed with this Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. 
 Eddy now proceeds to unlock further mysteries of sex. 
 In her Glossary she defines Adam as “ the belief in 
 original sin”; Eve, as “ the belief that the human race 
 originated materially instead of spiritually”; and 
 Children both as “ the spiritual thoughts and repre- 
 sentatives of Life, Truth and Love,” and as ‘“ sensual 
 and mortal beliefs: counterfeits of creation, . . . ma- 
 terial suppositions of life, substance and intelligence 
 opposed to the Science of being.” 
 
 In the latter part of the last definition, Mrs. Eddy 
 perhaps had reference to her only acknowledged child 
 who returned home to bring suit against ‘“ Mother.” 
 But to go back to fundamentals. The Glossary defi- 
 nitely settles the question as to the nature of deity, 
 defining Mother as ‘“ God; divine and eternal Princi- 
 ple; Life, Truth, and Love.” This definition is con- 
 firmed by the Miscellaneous Writings, where it is 
 stated that “‘ We learn in the Scriptures, as in Divine 
 Science, that God made all; that He is the universal 
 Father and Mother of man ”’; also that “all clergymen 
 
 
 
 4 Tbid., p. 546. 
 
 
 
MARRIAGE AND SEX 143 
 
 may not understand the illustrations in ‘ Christ and 
 Christmas,’ or that these refer not to personalities, but 
 present the type and shadow of Truth’s appearing in 
 the womanhood as well as in the manhood of God, our 
 divine Father and Mother.” '” 
 
 The illustration here referred to was finally with- 
 drawn, as it seemed going too far to send broadcast a 
 picture representing Mrs. Eddy with a halo around 
 her head. The public had to be catered to, but what 
 was going on in private was another matter. In her 
 books and in her sermons, Mrs. Eddy went pretty far, 
 but not so far as in her Massachusetts Metaphysical 
 College. In Science and Health for 1885, she surmised 
 “‘ should mortal mind adopt the appearing of a star for 
 its formula of creation, the advent of mental man would 
 be signified by a star.” In the same year she adver- 
 tised in the Christian Science Journal: ‘“ Mary B. G. 
 Eddy, Professor of Obstetrics, Metaphysics, and 
 Christian Science.”” Now, we know from the court 
 records that when, in 1888, Professor Eddy gave a 
 course of six lectures on “ Obstetrics,” five of which 
 were taken up with malicious animal magnetism, the 
 students, who had paid high fees for the privilege of 
 attending them, naturally rebelled.’ Weill, what were 
 these lectures about? Josephine Curtis Woodbury, 
 once, like Mrs. Augusta V. Stetson, C. S. D., a favour- 
 ite of the founder, made this statement: 
 
 “The substance of certain instructions given by Mrs. 
 Eddy in private is as follows: If Jesus was divinely con- 
 ceived by the Holy Ghost or Spirit, without a human 
 
 
 
 ® Miscellancous Writings, p. 33. 
 22 Joseph Jastrow, Psychology of Conviction, p. 206, New 
 York, 1918, 
 
144 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 father, Mary not having known her husband,—then 
 women may become mothers by a supreme effort of their 
 own minds, or through the influence upon them of an 
 Unholy Ghost, a malign spirit. Women of unquestioned 
 integrity who had been Mrs. Eddy’s students, testified 
 that she had so taught, and that by this teaching families 
 had been broken up; that thus maidens have been terrified 
 out of their wits. . . . Whatever her denials may be, such 
 were Mrs. Eddy’s teachings while in her college; to which 
 she added the oracular declaration that it lay within her 
 power to dissolve such motherhood by a wave of her 
 celestial rod.” 4 
 
 
 
 4 Christian Science and Its Prophetess, Arena, 21.569. 
 
XIV 
 SUMMARY 
 
 “What moved the female representative of the mother- 
 hood of God, Mary Baker Eddy, to write ‘ Science and 
 Health’ and give tt to a world which never before had 
 heard such startling denunciation of the fleshly Adam?” 
 
 —Avucusta E. Stetson, Reminiscences. 
 
 “ Perpetual conversance with sdeas of supernaturalism; 
 daily and nightly communications, whether in the form of 
 conscious imposture or honest delusion, with the spiritual 
 world, continued through a length of time—must be 
 allowed to be unsalutary.’—Uruam, Salem Witchcraft. 
 
 and in her Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy 
 
 evidently offered only the modified milk of her 
 gospel. The private teaching described by Mrs. 
 Woodbury furnished the real stuff of which her men- 
 tality was compounded and suggests most decidedly 
 the need for a final psycho-analytic treatment. There 
 was something haunting her, but only occasionally did 
 she dare breathe what it was all about. Once, in 1906, 
 in her message to the Mother Church, she blurted out 
 a statement that marriage was “ legalised lust,” a state- 
 ment which caused numerous defections from the 
 western churches.* Of course she turned upon Mrs. 
 Woodbury for the Arena article, though all Christian 
 
 | [: her chapter on Marriage in Science and Health, 
 
 
 
 1Compare The Interior, May 6, 1909; Where and Why Christian 
 Science is Losing, by George W. Louttit, formerly First Reader of 
 the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Fort Wayne, Ind. 
 
 145 
 
146 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Scientists called to the witness stand in the latter’s suit 
 for criminal libel, declared that they did not know who 
 was referred to as “ the Babylonish Woman,” living in 
 her “‘ widowhood of lust.” By the help of Scripture, 
 Mrs. Eddy evidently gained a rich vocabulary, just as 
 by her “spiritual” or allegorical interpretation she 
 gained considerable esoteric knowledge. To these in- 
 terpretations we now return. Mrs. Woodbury divides 
 the teaching on ‘‘ Metaphysical Obstetrics ” into two 
 subjects, the influence of the phantasmal lover and the 
 influence of an “ Unholy Ghost.” With the former, 
 Mrs. Woodbury was herself apparently intrigued— 
 though she does not say it here. Her talk about im- 
 maculate conception, her boasts about her “ spiritually 
 conceived ” son, whom she called the ‘ Prince of 
 Peace,” raised such a stir that Mrs. Eddy had to 
 shut her up and formally cast her off. Such was the 
 end of “The war in Heaven,” precipitated by Mrs. 
 Woodbury’s imprudent query as to who would succeed 
 Mrs. Eddy. 
 
 There was public suppression, but the private con- 
 victions still hung on. The recently published letters 
 of Mrs. Eddy to Mrs. Stetson suggest this: “. . . come 
 directly to me; I must tell you something about mental 
 practice that cannot be written and involves ail for 
 time and eternity, ...come without fail,’ *—this 
 hurried scrawl betrays a state of mind that led on to 
 what has been euphemistically called ‘‘ nocturnal hys- 
 teria.” As Mrs. Eddy had frightened others, so she 
 now frightened herself; her wonderful lamp had loosed 
 
 
 
 _*Cf. Mrs. Stetson, The New York Times religious adver- 
 tisement, March 26, 1922. For Mrs. Stetson’s views on “birth 
 control ” by ‘ spiritual conception,” see The New York Times, 
 January 22, 1922. 
 
 i 
 
SUMMARY 147 
 
 the genii, and what form of persecutory delusions she 
 came to suffer from are to be described only by the 
 psychiatrist. We therefore turn to the same authority 
 who treated of Mother Ann Lee. 
 
 First, let us remember, says the author of Christian 
 Science and Sex,® that Mrs. Mary Morse Baker Glover 
 Patterson Eddy had more husbands than she had chil- 
 dren. This is some evidence of her having been 
 afflicted with sexuo-emotional conflicts. Without the 
 satisfaction of the biological impulse of progeny, she 
 became afflicted with the compensatory psychological 
 urge to become the ‘‘ mother ” of all who are “ born of 
 truth and love.” . . . God “ is the universal Father and 
 Mother of man”; perhaps because bi-sexual impulses 
 in herself required the projection of these dual qualities 
 into her God. She discoursed glibly about “‘ the woman- 
 hood as well as the manhood of God,” probably because 
 with this concept she could achieve a needed compensa- 
 tion for her feelings of inferiority. . . . Those who are 
 excessively burdened by the feeling of their sinful flesh 
 tend to find compensation in rising above the flesh, in 
 identifying themselves with the supernatural generally, 
 or with God. So they argue that God, “ being the all- 
 in-all,” one like Mrs. Eddy is herself a part of God, and 
 how could she, a part of God, commit any sin so long as 
 she rejects the “ erroneous belief ”’ that ‘‘ evil is real ’’? 
 
 No. She is “no longer obliged to sin.” To such 
 persons all is pure, even though to unspiritual vision 
 it may still seem both real and evil. Having herself 
 experienced that “spiritual birth’ which “ opens to 
 the enraptured understanding” many things, she 
 
 
 
 ® Theodore Schroeder, New York Medical Journal, Nov. 27, 
 1920. The Eddyite quotations are taken from Science and Health 
 and Miscellaneous Writings. 
 
148 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 readily discovers (perhaps with the help of her many 
 husbands) that lust is “always wrong” unless the 
 physiological factors can be excluded from conscious- 
 ness. Thus we can oppose to “ material sense of love ” 
 a purely psychological erotism, that is a “‘ spiritual law 
 of love” and “spiritual love” with “‘ spiritual one- 
 ness,” with God or anyone else in the universe, either 
 dead or alive. . . . Now, generation “ rests on no sex- 
 ual basis.” In all climes and times, neurotics have 
 found their way to celestial exaltation, through spiritual 
 connubiality, heavenly bridegrooms, and offspring be- 
 gotten by ghosts. Mrs. Eddy had experienced the 
 pains of parturition at least once, but under the inhibit- 
 ing compulsion of her neurosis she could exclude even 
 that from memory and consciousness, and she may 
 have believed herself to have begotten her child on no 
 sexual basis. The psychiatrist can give her a sympa- 
 thetic understanding, if he cannot agree with her. 
 When the “spiritual creation is discerned and the 
 union of male and female apprehended as in the Apoca- 
 lypse,” then will marriage be abolished. . . . Here, as 
 always, the development is the same, from some ab- 
 normal sex tendencies through sexual allegories to a 
 firm belief that all lust is evil. Hence celibacy, spirit- 
 ual love, eternity of sex attraction through piety, and 
 finally the overthrow of the reason upon the subject 
 of the mania as shown in the illusions about the spir- 
 itual generation of flesh and blood offspring which 
 “rests on no sexual basis.” ‘This belief that some day 
 either men or women will beget human offspring with- 
 out the help of the other sex, is an oft recurring 
 symptom of psychoneurosis.* 
 
 
 
 * Schroeder, Christian Science and Sex, pp. 3, 4. 
 
SUMMARY 149 
 
 This is a valuable interpretation of the three-fold 
 Eddyite doctrine of the dual nature of deity, the spir- 
 itual union of the sexes and sex symbolism. Besides 
 the case of Mrs. Woodbury, “ virgin mother ” of “ the 
 Prince of Peace,” there is corroborative evidence that 
 such was the original teaching of Mother Eddy in the 
 case of Augusta E. Stetson, author of My Sfiritual 
 Aeroplane and Spiritual Generation. ‘The latter has 
 recently published an article upon ‘“ The Scientific, 
 Metaphysical, Spiritual Definition of ‘ Birth Control,’ 
 Under the Law of God.” ‘This effusion states that for 
 a solution of the Science of existence we should go to 
 Mrs. Eddy’s teaching that spiritual generation is the 
 only reality of man;—that our Father-Mother God, 
 the one and only creator, controls the birth of Her 
 infinite idea; that the divine “‘ Us ” is man’s source and 
 supply of existence; that material birth, growth, matur- 
 ity, and decay are no part of the real man and the real 
 universe. ‘They are the product of the Adam-Eve 
 dream of sensual, sexual conception; that our Father- 
 Mother God, the divine “ Us” unfolds and develops 
 His-Her progeny; . . . that the words of our Leader, 
 Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy, are understood 
 by all who have come up through mighty wrestling with 
 the false belief of life and intelligence as existent in 
 matter. ... “In their defense of their spiritual 
 origin and oneness with God, they have met the cruel 
 forces of the so-called carnal mind, which have been 
 encountered by prophets, Christ Jesus, and His dis- 
 ciples, and by Mary Baker Eddy and her students, 
 who have overcome material sense sufficiently to begin 
 to build ‘ on a wholly spiritual foundation,’ and who, in 
 a demonstrable degree, have gained the power of the 
 Christ-mind and the divine love which panoplies her 
 
150 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 children and protects them from the mental assassin— 
 the so-called carnal mind, which has ever opposed 
 Christ and them that are Christ’s.” ® 
 
 Such is original Christian Science cropping up again 
 in the person of an excommunicated leader. Now, at 
 one time Mrs. Stetson was so great a favourite of the 
 founder that the latter exclaimed: ‘I will tell you one 
 of my pet names for you when speaking of you to my 
 household, ‘ my war horse.’”® Of course these views 
 of Mrs. Stetson are anathema to the present leaders of 
 the church, and just as they have built a wall between | 
 the Church of Christ, Scientist, and Mrs. Stetson’s 
 adjoining house, so they would hide this primitive doc- 
 trine from the public. But the writers of this joint 
 work are in possession of many letters of former Chris- 
 tian Scientists whose homes have been broken up by 
 the belief of one or the other of the married pair re- 
 garding “all nativity in thought.” 
 
 Not to betray confidences, we here give a secondary 
 account from one competent observer of Christian 
 Science beliefs and practices: 
 
 “To her early students she imparted a secret teaching 
 regarding marriage, which teaching was doubtless gath- 
 ered from the Shakers. A fragment of that idea is still 
 in Science and Health. There are still a few of her old 
 students still living and many of them have persevered in 
 their idea of immaculate conception. I know a man, quite 
 an intelligent man, too, who believes that children can be 
 born without sexual intercourse. He is a very ardent 
 Scientist (C. S. I mean). He was separated from his first 
 wife. He married again, but his wife remained with him 
 
 
 
 °Cf. Mrs. Stetson’s religious advertisement, The New York 
 Times, Jan. 22, 1922. 
 ©The New York Times, March 26, ie 
 
 
 
SUMMARY 151 
 
 only a few months. This idea is not as prevalent in 
 Science now as it was, say, fifteen to twenty years or 
 more ago. However, Mrs. Eddy cannot be understood 
 unless a little light is thrown on her character from this 
 source, and I believe only Psycho-analysis can do that.” 
 
 But to proceed with our study of origins. We take 
 up as the last infirmity of a disordered mind the Eddy- 
 ite belief in demonology as related to sex. Here we 
 would ask the reader to connect the hints regarding 
 “the evil one,” and ‘‘ something about mental practice 
 that cannot be written,” with what Mrs. Eddy said 
 about Salem witchcraft in her suppressed chapter on 
 Demonology, a chapter which was the expression of a 
 complex, due to her break with Kennedy. But before 
 we study that particular delusion that afflicted the 
 founder of Christian Science in her last years and 
 caused even the faithful Foster-Eddy, her “ spirit- 
 ually ” adopted son, to leave her services, it is needful 
 to examine the sources of information that lay open to 
 her on the subject of Satan and His Invisible World, 
 —to use the title of an old witchcraft book. In Retro- 
 spection and Introspection, Mrs. Eddy speaks of read- 
 ing, in her childhood, one of her grandmother Baker’s 
 books “ printed in the olden type, and replete with the 
 phraseology current in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries.” What this book was we are not informed, 
 but we do know from certain recently recovered letters 
 to her brother that, up to the age of fourteen, Mary 
 Baker had enjoyed little real schooling, although she 
 had read a great deal.’ This fact, together with the 
 
 
 
 ™The Girlhood of Mary Baker Eddy, as Revealed in Letters 
 Written by Mrs. Eddy and now Published for the First Time, by 
 Isaac F, Marcosson, Munsey’s Magazine, April, 1911. 
 
152 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 persistent New England tradition as to the hanging of 
 the witches explain Mrs. Eddy’s references to the Salem 
 witchcraft and the Salem gibbet and her use of the 
 very phraseology of that dark chapter in our history. 
 We have already read what she had to say about the 
 “‘mental assassin’ who strives to bring about “ this 
 infernal result’ to frighten the individual, since “a 
 silent mental process, of impregnating into the mind, 
 and thence into the body, suffering, disease, fear, 
 hatred, sensuality, etc., is ‘Satan let loose.’ ” 
 
 So, like the strange story of the “ afflicted children ” 
 of Salem, we hear again the very language of that 
 dreadful episode, which was still handed down by word 
 of mouth. As the historian of the withcraft delusion 
 States: 
 
 “The prisons of Salem, Ipswich, Boston and Cam- 
 bridge were crowded; the feeling, dismal and horrible 
 indeed, became general that Satan was let loose and that 
 he and his confederates had free and unrestrained power 
 to go to and fro, torturing and destroying whomever he 
 will. . . . Apparitions, spectral shapes and living witches, 
 ghosts of their murdered victims, and demons generally 
 were of daily and hourly occurrence. It was further be- 
 lieved that a witch could be present, and act with de- 
 moniac power upon her victims, anywhere, at all times, 
 and at any distance, and that an invisible and impalpable 
 fluid darted from her eye; that the convulsions and fits of 
 children were under a diabolical hand; that such spectral 
 evidence belonged to the supernatural world; that the 
 godly were the most successful combatants against the 
 Satanic powers because they would not yield to the hellish 
 temptations, and finally that only those that had not the 
 fear of God before their eyes, could consult with a famil- 
 iar spirit and be seduced by the Devil. So having all these 
 things in mind,” argues Upham, “ we are ready to enter 
 
 
 
SUMMARY 153 
 
 the story of Salem witchcraft—the last great display of 
 the effect of the doctrines of demonology, of the belief 
 of the agency of invisible irresponsible beings, whether 
 fallen angels or departed spirits, upon the actions of men 
 and human affairs.’ § 
 
 But such was not the last display of demonology. 
 Within fourteen years of the above account, Mrs. 
 Eddy had published her “ final revelation.” Accord- 
 ingly, as Moncure Conway says in his Demonology 
 and Devil Lore, a little historic perspective makes the 
 situation simple.® Turn, then, from 1692 to 1881. 
 Substitute for the old time witch the modern mental 
 malpractitioner and we learn that a recalcitrant student 
 goes forth on his “errands of envy and revenge” to 
 draw others into the vortex of ruin; that he can 
 ‘“‘ govern the actions of his patients in any direction he 
 chooses. We now understand that never another of 
 our students would have gone astray from the straight 
 and narrow path but for the continued mesmeric in- 
 fluences of that one, employed months, and even years, 
 upon certain individuals whom he wished to turn away 
 from Christian Science, until at last they yielded to 
 the hidden agent, and thought and did as he directed, 
 and he boasted of his power over them. Future history 
 will reveal him, and his inauguration of a power which, 
 if it be not discovered, is fatal to. the health, life, or 
 prosperity of the individual. The solution of Salem 
 witchcraft has come, and its remedy is metaphysics 
 instead of a gibbet.” 
 
 All this has its historic parallels. In the Salem 
 witchcraft proceedings, concludes Upham, the supersti- 
 
 
 
 &C, W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, passim, Boston, 1867. 
 ® 2.402, London, 1879, 
 
154 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 tion of the Middle Ages is embodied in real action. All 
 its extravagances, absurdities and monstrosities appear 
 in their application to human experience. So, we con- 
 clude that, just as the old women of 1692 declared 
 themselves afflicted, tormented and assaulted by the 
 evil one, so did Mrs. Eddy in her old age. Now, in 
 senile dementia, as one authority explains, there is a 
 recrudescence of childish memories, a reappearance of 
 some apparently forgotten train of thought, which 
 “rises like a ghost out of a gulf.” So with Mrs. Eddy. 
 She believed not only in the mental assassin who could 
 turn away the faithful, who could poison at a distance, 
 who could “destroy his neighbour’s flocks and herds 
 and enter his house to demoralise his household,” but 
 her obsessions on this subject increased in complexity 
 and intensity. Thus we approach that “ evil hour ” 
 ‘when it seemed as if again, to use the old phraseology, 
 “the devils have with most horrid operations, broke in 
 upon our neighbourhood.” 
 
 If Mrs. Eddy wrote about demonology and the 
 agency of invisible beings we are curious to know where 
 she obtained her intimate knowledge of that gentry of 
 the underworld. She mentions specifically one source, 
 and that was the old family standby, William Smith’s 
 Dictionary of the Bible. Turning, therefore, to the 
 Boston edition of 1868, we are informed that ‘ the 
 demons spoken of as spiritual beings, at enmity with 
 God, had power to afflict man not only with disease, 
 but also with spiritual pollution.” Consequently, re- 
 calling what the psycho-analyst has to say as to the 
 sexual conflict between the ideas of purity and the 
 ideas of pollution we have a hint of Mrs. Eddy’s final 
 fear of the powers of darkness and what they might 
 do to her. 
 
SUMMARY 155 
 
 Another authority which the author of divine science 
 quotes is Cruden’s Complete Concordance of the Holy 
 Scriptures. Turning to the word giant, we learn that 
 this signifies a monster or a terrible man who beats and 
 bears down other men; and also that the word occurs 
 in Proverbs 11: 18, which is to be interpreted as fol- 
 lows: ‘‘ The paths of a debauched woman lead to the 
 Rephanims, that is to Hell, where the rebellious 
 giants are.” 1° 
 
 If we connect this kind of information with Mrs. 
 Eddy’s teachings in her class on “ mental obstetrics ” 
 we have a recrudescence of the medizval beliefs in 
 incubi and congressus cum daemonis. According to 
 Tyler, in his Primitive Culture, there was a certain 
 belief which was a distinct product of the savage ani- 
 mistic theory of dreams as real visits from personal 
 spiritual beings,—a belief which lasted on without a 
 shift or break into medizeval Christendom. This was 
 the doctrine of the incubi and succubae, those male 
 and female nocturnal demons which consort with 
 men and women.* The same belief reappears in 
 the Salem witchcraft where the “black man” is 
 frequently referred to as tormenting and assaulting 
 women. 
 
 History repeats itself in Mrs. Woodbury’s exposure 
 of the teachings of an Eddyite “P. M.,” or “ pri- 
 vate meeting.” Here the “virgin” mother of the - 
 “Prince of Peace,” or ‘ Little Immanuel,” boldly 
 stated that girls were terrified by the doctrine that 
 they might be made pregnant through the influence 
 of demons.” 
 
 
 
 ” Cruden’s Concordance, New York, 1860. 
 ™E. B. Tyler, Primitive Culture, 2.173. London, 1871. 
 2% Compare Milmine, p. 437. 
 
156 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 In setting forth this doctrine, Mrs. Eddy was evi- 
 dently undergoing a mental struggle of the most severe 
 kind. She whose motto was purity was haunted by her 
 own definition of devil as “animal magnetism,” and 
 “Just of the flesh.” This struggle led to a veritable 
 disruption of consciousness as may be seen from re- 
 calling the psycho-analyst’s definition of conflict as a 
 struggle between the complex and the personality where 
 the individual feels himself torn by emotional tensions. 
 It is a veritable alternating personality which confronts 
 us. On the one hand there is what has been described 
 as “ the process of spiritual refinement promulgated by 
 the pastor emeritus,”’ and on the other her belief in the 
 possibility of “committing adultery in the dark re- 
 cesses of thought.” The latter was a charge brought 
 against the recalcitrant Kennedy. It now recoils upon 
 Mrs. Eddy herself if we are to judge from two state- 
 ments made by her. In her Pulpit and Press she de- 
 clared: ‘‘ From first to last the Mother Church seemed 
 type and shadow of the warfare between the flesh and 
 spirit.” 7* In her letter to Mrs. Stetson she speaks of 
 “the evil one” and of “‘ something about mental prac- 
 tice that cannot be written.” Both these statements, 
 the one for the public, the other for the private ear, 
 emanated from the home of the pastor emeritus, in 
 Concord, New Hampshire. Now, what was happening 
 behind the walls at “ Pleasant View” in the way of 
 mental conflict has been intimated in rather vague 
 terms as “nocturnal hysteria.”” The joint authors of 
 this work know the details of this monstrous delusion, 
 but prefer to utilise the description of Dr. Stephen 
 Paget: “No wonder her adopted son, Dr. Foster- 
 
 
 
 ** Page 28. Concord, New Hampshire, 1900, 
 
SUMMARY 157 
 
 Eddy, tells of days and nights as black as those 
 painted by Poe, when the unhappy woman fancied 
 that evil minds were assailing her to her confusion 
 and distress.” ** ' 
 
 A brief summary and we are done. Two entirely 
 different pictures of Mrs. Eddy have been drawn, and 
 both should be presented, the one from the standpoint 
 of pathology, the other from that of propaganda. Both 
 are based on the documents furnished by Mrs. Eddy 
 and her followers, and the two taken together furnish 
 a picture of a female Jekyll and Hyde. The critic 
 offers the picture of an abnormal child, invalid, healer, 
 revelationist, and deified head of a money-making 
 sect, a person whose earliest recollections began with 
 voices ‘‘not our own,” and whose latest hours were 
 plagued by delusions. Now, as against the present 
 legend of the sweet-tempered recipient of celestial 
 messages the family doctor is found to have diag- 
 nosed her voices as hysteria. ‘Thus began that per- 
 sistent pathological strain in the life of the founder 
 of what is called ‘‘ Christian Science,” the “ divine 
 name ”’ believed by its adherents to have been revealed 
 and inspired. 
 
 
 
 4 Faith and Works od Christian Science, p. 98. London, 1909, 
 For an autobiographical sketch of an insane woman who believed 
 that “astral giants” might propagate their kind, compare Heav- 
 enly Bridegrooms, An Unintentional Contribution to the Eroto- 
 genetic Interpretation of Religion by Ida C,. (edited by Theodore 
 Schroeder, Alienist and Neurologist, November, 1915-August, 
 1917). In this work the author cites from St. Augustine (City of 
 God, 15.23) that “ Incubi have often injured women,” and also the 
 tradition that “ Magdalen’s Lover was the Devil,” who appeared to 
 her as a “black man.” Compare also M. A. Murray, Witch Cult 
 in Western Europe. Oxford, 1921. Chapter V. The Rites, p. 183, 
 “Incubus.” For a similar belief among modern negroes compare 
 A. J. N. Tremearne, The Ben of the Bort; Demons and Demon 
 Dancing in West and North Africa, pp. 19, 59, 66, London, 1914. 
 
158 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 The real revelation in regard to the life of Mary 
 Baker Eddy is that abnormal psychology finds valuable 
 material in her early convulsive attacks, in her adoles- 
 cent interest in the curative principle of mesmerism, in 
 her “ spiritual ” mediumship, in her “ prophetic ”’ mes- 
 sages as high priestess, and more than all in her grow- 
 ing obsession on the subject of malicious animal 
 magnetism, especially in its relation to sex and “ spirit- 
 ual generation.” In a word, it is a true case of mental 
 regression, for regression takes place when funda- 
 mental trends of the organism are replaced by trends 
 less fundamental; in this case, the trend of love by that 
 of religion.” 
 
 In contrast to this psychic history with all its un- 
 pleasant connotations it is interesting to read the de- 
 scription of ‘‘ Our dear Mother in God,” compiled, for 
 a consideration, by the postmaster of Concord, New 
 Hampshire. We suspect that the data in this docu- 
 ment were furnished by the inmate of “ Pleasant 
 View,” for it begins with all the details of her ancestry, 
 continues with a technical account of her dubious coat 
 of arms and ends with this peroration: ‘‘ There have 
 been great women since the world began: Cleopatra, 
 Paula, Heloise, St. Theresa, Queen Elizabeth, Mme. de 
 Maintenon, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Mme. 
 Racamier, Mme. de Stael, Hannah Moore, George 
 Eliot,—each with splendid graces and superiority of 
 body, mind, or soul; but as a happy combination of 
 modesty, simplicity, culture, of good heartedness, of 
 noble endeavour, of remarkable mental force, of intel- 
 lectual depth and spiritual insight, of indomitable, mys- 
 terious power and influence coupled with a gentle 
 
 
 
 * Frederic Lyman Wells, Mental Regression; Its Conception 
 and Types. Psychiatric Bulletin, October, 1916, 
 
SUMMARY 159 
 
 disposition and a guileless heart, of inspiring and en- 
 nobling influence, Mary Baker Eddy is believed by 
 hundreds of thousands to wield the sceptre and wear 
 the crown as earth’s queen.” *° 
 
 
 
 % Hon. Henry Robinson; Biographical sketch, Rev. Mary Baker 
 G. Eddy. 
 

 
PART II 
 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK W. PEABopy, LL.B. 
 
" > j 
 yeh 
 
 
 
NOTE 
 
 T is not intended by my contribution to this 
 
 | volume to supersede, but to supplement, my 
 
 “ Religio-Medical Masquerade.” Chapter VII is 
 
 a rewriting of the chapter on the same subject in the 
 
 earlier book. Otherwise the material here is new, 
 
 although some of Mrs. Eddy’s utterances, formerly 
 
 used for one purpose, are now used to illustrate 
 another viewpoint. 
 
 I should like to have it understood that, however 
 severe may be deemed portions of my arraignment of 
 Mrs. Eddy, they do not, to avoid repetition, go the 
 length of things charged against her in my publications 
 years before her death. Mrs. Eddy died in 1910. In 
 1904, The New York Times said: “ There is absolutely 
 no middle ground. Either Mr. Peabody is the most 
 shameless of calumniators, or Mrs. Eddy is the basest 
 of charlatans. And Mr. Peabody expresses an eager 
 readiness to have this question submitted to any test. 
 His charges run the whole gamut from attempted 
 murder to accomplished theft, with endless lying scat- 
 tered all along in between. The courts of Massachu- 
 setts are open and, until Mr. Peabody is a convicted 
 slanderer, no sane and decent person, man or woman, 
 can afford to give any countenance to Christian 
 Science.” 
 
 Mrs. Eddy made no appeal to the wide-open courts; 
 sought only suppression of what she well knew to be 
 
 163 
 
164 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 true. She also knew that a judicial tribunal is the only 
 
 place in which the whole truth could be properly told. 
 - I make no apology for repeated attempts to dis- 
 credit the woman. Thousands of children are in their 
 graves because of Mary Baker Eddy’s greed. 
 
I 
 AUTOCRACY 
 
 “<The Church Manual of The First Church of Christ, 
 Scientist, in Boston, Mass., written by Mary Baker Eddy 
 and copyrighted, is adapted to the Mother Church only. 
 It stands alone uniquely adapted to form the budding 
 thought and hedge it about with Divine Love. This 
 Manual shall not be revised without the written consent of 
 sts author. No new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, 
 nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled without 
 the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of 
 our textbook, ‘Science and Health, ” 
 
 —Mary BAKER Eppy. 
 
 “ Her government ts all there, in that deceptively inno- 
 cent looking little book, that cunning little devilish book, 
 _ that slumbering little brown volcano, with hell in its 
 
 bowels.’—Mark TWAIN. 
 
 was not the first woman tyrant. Isabella of 
 
 Castile was one; Catherine of Russia was an- 
 other, and Mary of England was more or less disagree- 
 ably despotic. But history will be searched in vain for 
 another autocrat so arbitrary, so whimsical, so fantas- 
 tic, so funny as Mary Baker Eddy. She had no guide 
 but her own untrained, untutored mind; considered no 
 need but her flitting fancy; tolerated no’ shadow of 
 rivalry, no suggestion of insubordination; demanded 
 implicit, unquestioning, instant obedience. The exac- 
 tion of complete submission was the first law of her 
 being; and from official and unofficial followers she 
 
 165 
 
 } H ISTORY leaves us in no doubt that Mrs. Eddy 
 
166 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 achieved a submission as complete as that of slaves 
 crouching under the lash of the slave-driver. Theirs 
 not to reason why; theirs but to obey, and again, obey, 
 and without end, obey. The Eddy tyranny was detest- 
 able; but the Eddyite subjection was nauseating. Men 
 and women abased themselves before this vulgar and 
 ignorant woman, gave up every shred of manly and 
 womanly independence, groveled at her feet. She 
 used them as long as they were useful,—then she 
 spurned them. 
 
 The Church Manual of The First Church of Christ, 
 Scientist, in Boston, contains the rules, or by-laws, for 
 its government. As I have elsewhere shown, the con- 
 stitution of Massachusetts guarantees a congregational 
 form of government to all religious organisations. The 
 congregation of the church we are considering has had, 
 at no time, any voice whatever in its government. Its 
 officials, or members, were never consulted regarding 
 the by-laws, which, in some instances, extended to their 
 temporal affairs, and covered the expenditure of church 
 funds. They exclusively contributed the money; Mrs. 
 Eddy, exclusively, through her by-laws, controlled its 
 expenditure. Every rule and by-law contained in the 
 Manual was conceived and dictated by Mrs. Eddy. 
 She said so, and all the governed admitted it. Indeed, 
 in the Boston litigation between church officials, Judge 
 Dodge so decided. To be sure, she went through the 
 form of asking her directors to adopt the by-laws, as 
 she submitted them, one after another; but the direc- 
 tors were her creatures, appointed at her request and 
 removable at her pleasure. Speed in adopting a by-law 
 received from “ Mother ” was a symptom of loyalty; 
 and they tumbled over one another in their haste to 
 incorporate the new by-law in the Manual. 
 
AUTOCRACY . 167 
 
 When Mark Twain was writing his Christian 
 Science, I loaned him my copy of this Manual. 
 When he returned it, he told me that he had found it 
 intensely interesting and had devoted forty thousand 
 words of his book to it. Let us examine Mrs. Eddy’s 
 by-laws with some care, to see if we can determine 
 whether her notion that the Manual is “ uniquely 
 adapted to form the budding thought and hedge it 
 about with Divine Love,” properly characterises it, or 
 Mark Twain’s somewhat different opinion that it is a 
 “slumbering little brown volcano, with hell in its 
 bowels.” 
 
 In quoting from the Manual, I shall not encumber 
 my pages with Article and Section for each citation. 
 All may be found in the Manual published in 1918, 
 which is precisely as Mrs. Eddy left it. 
 
 One of these by-laws, so beautifully ‘‘ adapted to 
 form the budding thought,” is as follows: 
 
 “ At the written request of the Pastor-Emeritus, Mrs. 
 Eddy, the Board of Directors shall notify a person who 
 has been a member of the church at least three years to go, 
 in ten days, to her, and it shall be the duty of the member 
 thus notified to remain with Mrs. Eddy three years con- 
 secutively. A member who leaves her in less time with- 
 out the Directors’ consent, or who declines to obey this 
 call to duty, upon Mrs. Eddy’s complaint thereof shall be 
 excommunicated from the Mother Church. Members thus 
 serving the Leader shall be paid semi-annually at the rate 
 of one thousand dollars yearly in addition to rent and 
 board.” 
 
 We can guess the thought that would bud in the 
 mind of a self-respecting person upon receipt of this 
 notice. The threat of excommunication, of a denial of 
 
168 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 the Christian Science way of salvation, is held over the 
 head of any of the many thousands of church members 
 who declines in ten days to abandon home and wife 
 and children for three consecutive years and serve his 
 “Leader ” in any menial capacity she might assign, at 
 the expense of the church. Yet men did that thing, 
 when so notified. 
 
 That the Pastor-Emeritus had a shrewd eye for 
 number one appears from the following by-law: 
 
 “ Tf a student who has been called to serve our Leader 
 in accordance with Article XXII, Section 11 of the 
 Church Manual leaves her before the expiration of the 
 time therein mentioned, such student shall pay to Mrs. 
 Eddy whatsoever she may charge for what she has taught 
 him or her during the time of such service.” 
 
 So, not only excommunication, but ruination stares 
 the poor devil in the face. Little discernment indeed 
 is needed to perceive how completely these two laws 
 of Mrs. Eddy’s authorship hedge the budding thought 
 about with “ divine Love.” But there is more to the 
 same effect. Cook, chambermaid and waitress for the 
 Pastor-Emeritus are provided for by the laws Mrs. 
 Eddy made for her church, as follows: 
 
 “Tf the author of the Christian Science textbook call on 
 this Board for household help or a handmaid, the Board 
 shall immediately appoint a proper member of this church 
 therefor, and the appointee shall go immediately in obedi- 
 ence to the call. ‘He that loveth father or mother more 
 than me is not worthy of me.’” 
 
 As the foregoing is one of the church’s py-laws, it 
 may be presumed that the appointing power paid for 
 such household help and handmaiden as, upon Mrs. 
 
AUTOCRACY 169 
 
 Eddy’s call, the Christian Science Board of Directors 
 of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, 
 appointed. Budding thought and hedging love there, 
 too, for those responding, not in ten days, ‘‘ immedi- 
 ately.” But the words of Jesus in the mouth of the 
 woman who empowered herself to charge the disobedi- 
 ent whatever she pleased for alleged teaching, give us, 
 do they not, a little suggestion of lava at the bottom of 
 a crater? Ruined homes for the obedient; ruined for- 
 tunes for those who disobey. 
 
 It should be remembered that membership of this 
 “‘ church ” was and is, in all cases, conditioned upon 
 assent to all its laws. 
 
 The law of copyright ‘puts me in a difficulty.” 
 Mrs. Eddy’s estate owns the copyright of the Manual, 
 and tne chances are that if I were to continue literal 
 quotations from the “ little brown volcano,” an attempt 
 would be made to suppress our book because of alleged 
 infringement. I may print extracts; but how copious 
 they may be without infringement, is not precisely de- 
 termined. It is best to err on the safe side. We shall 
 continue our exploration of the crater; but vary our 
 method to avoid possible offense of the law, and at- 
 tempted suppression. 
 
 We have seen some of Mrs. Eddy’s encroachments 
 upon purely temporal affairs by her church laws. 
 There are others; and the violation of any law in the 
 Manual entailed possible expulsion from the church, 
 and, consequent, social ostracism from Christian- 
 Sciencedom. 
 
 Church members are forbidden to join any organisa- 
 tion or society except those specified in the Manual, 
 such as were composed only of Christian Scientists. 
 When this by-law was published to the faithful, men 
 
170 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 and women everywhere withdrew from societies and 
 clubs not of a purely Christian Science character, and 
 thereafter confined themselves to those permitted by 
 Mrs. Eddy. Men even withdrew from fraternal or- 
 ganisations and women from whist clubs. The evident 
 purpose of this by-law was to keep its author’s follow- 
 ers from contact with unbelievers, given to freedom 
 of speech. 
 
 No person was allowed to become a member of 
 Mrs. Eddy’s church who claimed a “ spiritually- 
 adopted child or a spiritually-adopted husband or 
 wife,” and legal adoption as well as legal marriage 
 were required. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy made that law and it’s possible she knew 
 what she meant and the conditions in her church that 
 needed it. If men and women were not cohabiting as 
 husband and wife without the formality of marriage, 
 why legislate against such a condition? What a 
 “‘ spiritually-adopted wife’ may be, I confess my in- 
 ability to conjecture. Mrs. Eddy openly taught that 
 procreation does not rest on sex, and that children may 
 be conceived and born in purely spiritual fashion. She 
 went so far as to affirm, but not openly, that absent 
 malicious mental treatment could cause, and had 
 caused, pregnancy; and, in one particular case with 
 which I am familiar, told a married woman that she 
 was with child by reason of such treatment by a desig- 
 nated individual, and advised that abortion be mentally 
 effected. The abnormal attract the abnormal. A mis- 
 cellaneous assortment of freaks flocked towards Mrs. 
 Eddy’s freak church, and she felt it necessary to put 
 up the bars against those claiming spiritually-adopted 
 husband or wife. 
 
 What Mrs. Eddy called The Golden Rule is a by-law 
 
AUTOCRACY 171 
 
 prohibiting members of her church to “haunt Mrs. 
 Eddy’s drive,” to “ stroll by her house,” or camp out in 
 the neighbourhood for the purpose of such haunting 
 and strolling. 
 
 This Eddy golden rule is quite as characteristic of 
 her as The Golden Rule is characteristic of Jesus; and 
 she was precisely as like unto Him as immeasurable 
 selfishness is like unto complete self-abnegation. 
 
 I have elsewhere commented upon Mrs. Eddy’s by- 
 law prohibiting the patronising of bookstores where 
 books displeasing to her were sold—“ obnoxious litera- 
 ture,” she called them. The pastor-emeritus of a 
 church threatens with excommunication men and 
 women who dare to buy a book in a store that handles, 
 in the regular course of business, publications telling 
 the unvarnished truth about her. Such telling, she 
 called blasphemy. 
 
 Subscription to Christian Science periodicals was 
 made obligatory upon all her church members by Eddy 
 law. Forty thousand members of a church, to the by- 
 laws of which they assented when applying for mem- 
 bership, were required by those laws to subscribe to 
 The Christian Science Journal, three dollars; Christian 
 Science Sentinel, three dollars; Christian Science Mon- 
 itor, nine dollars; Christian Science Quarterly, one dol- 
 lar; total cost of each member’s subscription, sixteen 
 dollars; total income, from members of the Boston 
 church alone, of Christian Science Publishing Society 
 from church members for periodicals, seven hundred 
 and sixty thousand dollars. If a member declined or 
 neglected to comply with the requirement of this by-law 
 and send in his four subscriptions, Mrs. Eddy’s laws 
 provide that he be admonished; if still backward in 
 forwarding his check, he is to be placed on probation, 
 
172 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 and if that doesn’t move him to prompt remittance, 
 excommunicated he is. No wonder the Publishing 
 Society is able to show a net annual profit of half a 
 million dollars and more, as its manager made oath in 
 the Boston litigation. ‘ Incapable of reasoning outside 
 of commercial lines,’’ Mrs. Eddy was said to have been. 
 Her life demonstrated that, in commercial matters, she 
 was capable of reasoning from nothing to three million 
 dollars. 
 
 We cannot go into the contents of this little brown 
 book in complete detail. There was no plan or system, 
 no attempt at logical arrangement or coherency. An 
 idea popped into her head and the directors received a 
 by-law with directions to adopt it; and so the thing 
 grew until it reached its final form. The last law in 
 the book provides that “no new tenet or by-law shall 
 be adopted, nor any tenet or by-law amended or an- 
 nulled, without the written consent of Mary Baker 
 Eddy, the author of our textbook, Science and Health.” 
 Completely dominant in her life, in her death she is 
 dominant through her unchangeable laws. In fact, not 
 only were her laws unchangeable without her consent, 
 they were inoperative without her consent. Official 
 hand or foot the directors couldn’t stir, without her 
 consent, generally in writing. Since she departed this 
 life, the directors, acting without her consent, have 
 become precisely as autocratic as the woman whose 
 mere puppets they had been. 
 
 Let me attempt in one sentence to outline the autoc- 
 racy that grew out of Mrs. Eddy’s jealousy of power 
 and determination to be absolutely the “ whole thing.” 
 The five directors of the Boston church were appointed 
 or approved by her and were removable at her pleasure, 
 and she fixed their salaries; the editors of The Chris- 
 
AUTOCRACY 173 
 
 tian Science Journal, Sentinel, Quarterly and Monitor, 
 quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily publications; the 
 president of the church, the treasurer, the clerk, the 
 readers, the three members of the committee on busi- 
 ness, the three trustees of the Publishing Society, who 
 employed seven hundred and more subordinates, the 
 three members of the board of education, the President 
 of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, the three 
 members of the committee on finance, the twenty or 
 thirty lecturers, the fifty-odd committees on publica- 
 tion scattered throughout the world,—comprising every 
 official and representative of her church and every 
 authorised spokesman of Christian Science—were se- 
 lected by Mrs. Eddy, or by the directors with her 
 approval, and were removable at her sweet will and 
 pleasure. ‘Thus, appointing herself to the office of 
 pastor-emeritus (created by her) and shielding herself 
 whenever she pleased behind her directors, Mrs. Eddy 
 controlled every official action and every authorised 
 utterance. Church members furnished the money; her 
 organisation relieved them of that and of every right 
 and voice, and responsibility in church affairs. They 
 had the only high privilege of paying the bills, and that 
 precious privilege is still theirs. 
 
 If there exists, or has existed since the world became 
 in any measure civilised, an organisation, civil, polit- 
 ical, religious, or any other, so autocratically dominated 
 by a single person, and in which the governed so com- 
 pletely surrendered every vestige of right and so slav- 
 ishly submitted their necks to the yoke, it has escaped 
 my examination of history. And this exaltation of 
 herself and debasement of her worshippers, Mrs. 
 Eddy called hedging the budding thought about with 
 divine love. 
 
174 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 There have been other female impostors, but Mrs. 
 Eddy stands alone. 
 
 “We have seen,” said Macaulay, “an old woman 
 with no talents but the cunning of a fortune-teller, and 
 with the education of a scullion, exalted into a prophet- 
 ess and surrounded by tens of thousands of devoted 
 followers, many of whom were,-in station and in knowl- 
 edge, immeasurably her superiors; and all this in the 
 nineteenth century; and all this in London.” 
 
 Marvelling as he did, at Joanna Southcott’s parody 
 on religion in the early part of the last century, what 
 would Macaulay have thought of the Eddy despotism 
 as it existed in Boston in the beginning of the twentieth 
 century? The Southcott and the Eddy women were as 
 alike as two peas, in cunning and ignorance; and their 
 devoted followers were alike in being, for the most 
 part, immeasurably superior to the object of their 
 adoration; but there, as I see it, the likeness ends. 
 The Southcott woman seems to have been honest, to 
 have believed in her mission. There is no evidence 
 that she built up her “ religion ” upon a foundation of 
 deliberate lies. She did not make merchandise of it 
 and acquire a large fortune through its sale to her 
 dupes. ‘There was no taint of commercialism about 
 her frenzies. She died poor. What Joanna Southcott 
 was not, Mrs. Eddy was; what the one did not do, the 
 other did. Mother Joanna’s followers were devoted; 
 ‘“*Mother Mary’s,” worshipped. The surrender of the 
 former was not complete; the submission of the latter 
 was abject. And the London of 1800 differed from the 
 Boston of 1900. Both instances strikingly exhibit the 
 proneness of human beings to fetishism. 
 
 We cannot leave the Manual without reference to a 
 few more of Mrs, Eddy’s laws. At one time she had 
 
 ~ 
 
 ee Se 
 
AUTOCRACY ‘175 
 
 as a member of her household a Catholic woman whom 
 she had converted to Christian Science. The woman 
 died in Mrs. Eddy’s home, cursing Christian Science 
 and calling down malediction of God upon her. Hence 
 Mrs. Eddy’s strong bias against Catholics, which she 
 managed, in an astonishing degree, to communicate to 
 her followers. Christian Science salvation there was 
 for all who would bend the knee, save only Catholics. 
 The way was closed to them. Alas, poor Catholics! 
 Condemned they were to continue to live in a world of 
 solid realities. Not for them might sin and poverty, 
 sickness and death become mere errors of mortal mind. 
 _ The experience with her convert from Catholicism 
 moved Mrs. Eddy to send her directors a by-law pro- 
 _hibiting the teaching of Christian Science to Catholics, 
 “upon penalty, if persisted in, of excommunication, and 
 her directors promptly adopted it and it has its place 
 today in the Manual. This is probably the Eddy idea 
 of ‘ divine Love.” 
 
 Perhaps even more than she disliked Catholicism, 
 Mrs. Eddy disliked hypnotism, and she feared it as 
 much as she disliked it. One of her laws provided as 
 follows: “‘ Members of this Church shall not learn 
 hypnotism on penalty of being excommunicated from 
 this Church. No member shall enter a complaint of 
 mental malpractice for a sinister purpose. If the 
 author of Science and Health shall bear witness to the 
 offense of mental malpractice, it shall be considered a 
 sufficient evidence thereof.” 
 
 In her estimation hypnotism was the unforgivable 
 sin, and she really believed that the hypnotist, by 
 absent treatment, could cause sickness, sin, poverty 
 and every other evil under heaven. She feared it with 
 a shuddering fear, and constantly sought to protect 
 
176 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 herself from it by an impenetrable mental defence. 
 She also knew that hypnotism “cured ” in the same 
 way and to precisely the same extent as Christian 
 Science. The mental affirmation of anything believed 
 ' to possess curative power is just as curatively effica- 
 cious as the mental affirmation of anything else. A 
 Christian Science treatment consists in the inaudible 
 repetition of Mrs. Eddy’s famous definition of the 
 science of being, on page 464 of her immortal treatise: 
 “There is no life, truth, intelligence or substance in 
 matter. All is infinite mind and its infinite manifesta- 
 tions, for God is all in all. Spirit is immortal Truth; 
 matter is mortal error. Spirit is real and eternal; mat- 
 ter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God and man 
 is His image and likeness; hence man is spiritual and 
 not material.” That is what a Christian Science 
 “healer ” repeats over and over in the presence of 
 sickness and calls a treatment. Coué teaches that 
 the constant repetition of, ‘‘ Every day in every way I 
 am getting better and better,” will cure sickness. Mrs. 
 Eddy and Coué might swap formulas without changing 
 results; just as much and Just as little would follow: 
 or both Christian Scientists and Couéites might adopt 
 as a curative formula, “ A big black bug bit a big black 
 bear ”; and, confidently believing in its curative prop- 
 erties, effect the real cure of imaginary disease or the 
 imaginary cure of real disease. Neither, by either for- 
 mula, ever made a real cure of real disease. In both 
 cases a form of hypnotism is employed. Mrs. Eddy 
 hated hypnotism and hypnotists because she feared it 
 and them, and because she regarded it as rivalling 
 Christian Science; and made her evidence, against one 
 accused of using it, before her own tribunal conclusive. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy had no right or authority over the so- 
 
AUTOCRACY 177 
 
 called branch churches, except as she assumed it. In 
 her rules for her own church she extended her authority 
 over all the other churches, and no one questioned her 
 assumption. She required the “ readers” of all the 
 branch churches to be members of her ‘ Mother 
 Church,” and required them to enforce discipline in 
 their respective churches. The threat of excommunica- 
 tion was held over the heads of all who dared disobey. 
 No reader, of course, disobeyed, as excommunication 
 meant ruin. They were prohibited from making any 
 remarks from their pulpits, except such as were printed 
 in Mrs. Eddy’s periodicals. One of the things they 
 were directed to say, before reading alternate passages 
 from the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s book, called the 
 lesson-sermon, was that it was “‘ authorised by Christ.” 
 I have an idea that my repeated public denunciation 
 from the lecture-platform of that brazen lie, forced its 
 abandonment. ‘ Divinely authorised ” was substituted 
 for “ authorised by Christ.” One is only less obviously 
 false than the other. 
 
 It was not decreed that all members of branch 
 churches should be members also of the Boston church 
 and pay the annual tax of a dollar; but Mrs. Eddy 
 made known her wish that all her followers, wherever 
 resident, should belong to her very own church. Her 
 known wish had all the force of a by-law and was in 
 this matter represented as the will of God; and some 
 forty thousand dollars a year swept into the treasury 
 of the Boston church from members who seldom or 
 never darkened its doors. 
 
 There was a time when Christian Science churches 
 had preachers as all other churches have; but here and 
 there the preachers preached sermons that attracted 
 attention, caused them to be talked about and praised, 
 
178 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 gave them a degree of leadership in their respective 
 communities amongst Christian Scientists. No sooner 
 did this alarming condition come to Mrs. Eddy’s atten- 
 tion than she resolved that it should cease. No more 
 sermons were permitted, no original utterance from the 
 pulpit of any Christian Science church was permitted, 
 and readers superseded preachers. No one was per- 
 mitted to attract attention, but Mrs. Eddy; no one 
 was to have any praise, any admiration, any influence 
 but Mrs. Eddy; no one was permitted to make any use 
 whatever of his brains. But, if the church was to have 
 a pastor-emeritus, elementary logic required that it 
 should have a pastor; and, equal to all emergencies, 
 Mrs. Eddy furnished a pastor—a shepherd—for the 
 Christian Science flock of docile sheep. She made 
 another by-law, and the thing was done. By this new 
 law she made, ordained and provided that the Bible 
 and her treatise on mental healing should be the pastor 
 of her church. This pastor and shepherd of her sheep 
 would usurp none of the assumed prerogatives of the 
 pastor-emeritus; once more she became the whole 
 show. ‘The former preachers fell back into the ranks, 
 and all praise and glory again centered upon the hon- 
 orary pastor. 
 
 But enough—more than enough—of the Manual. 
 Walt Whitman said of his Leaves of Grass, ‘“‘ Who 
 touches this book, touches a man.” So it may be said 
 of The Manual of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, 
 in Boston, ‘‘ Who touches this book touches a woman 
 * named Eddy.” Two things Mrs. Eddy dearly and des- 
 | perately loved—money and power. Her love of dollars 
 - and cents, I have elsewhere displayed; the Manual, in 
 every line, displays her insane love of power. It was a 
 veritable greed, equalling her greed for money. She 
 
AUTOCRACY 179 
 
 made the Manual, and the Manual made her a despot 
 and her followers, slaves. 
 
 The Manual is an innocent-enough looking little 
 book with a cross and crown of gold on its brown 
 cover. Words of gentleness and love there are; but, 
 from cover to cover, are intolerance, arrogance, jeal- 
 ousy, insolence, hypocrisy, vanity, *falsehood, self- 
 glorification, a mad grasping for power, a ruthless will 
 to rule autocratically, a relentless determination to 
 crush all manly and womanly thought and. independ- 
 ence. In the degree that it exalts and magnifies its 
 author, it humiliates and debases her dupes. 
 
 The Church Manual of The First Church of Christ, 
 Scientist, in Boston, “‘ is uniquely adapted to form the 
 budding thought and hedge it about with divine love.” 
 With one word of its author’s encomium we can agree. 
 The book is “ unique,” in being portraiture in by-laws, 
 a soul document in church rules, character precisely, 
 though unconsciously, delineated, writ large by the 
 hand of the Pastor-Emeritus. Unique also as a “ slum- 
 bering little brown volcano, with hell in its bowels.” 
 
pi 
 AUTOCRATS 
 
 “No other Board in the English-speaking world is 
 vested with such a combination of exclusive and unrevts- 
 able power over spiritual and property concerns as this 
 Board seems to possess on the face of the creating docu- 
 ments. ... The members of the church have the entire 
 beneficial interest in the church property and the church- 
 management, while, under the present organisation they 
 are deprived of all actual control of etther:’—GEN. FRANK 
 S. STREETER, Mrs, Eddy’s personal lawyer. 
 
 brated case of Eustace and others, the Trustees 
 
 of the Christian Science Publishing Society, 
 against Dickey and others, the Directors of the First 
 Church of Christ, Scientist, of Boston. The trustees 
 held their office under a deed of trust made and exe- 
 cuted by Mrs. Eddy. The directors held their office 
 under a similar instrument also made and executed by 
 her. And Mrs. Eddy’s trustees, Eustace and others, 
 brought suit in a purely human tribunal against Mrs. 
 Eddy’s directors, Dickey and others. The parties to 
 the suit were, thus, all the highest officials of Mrs. 
 Eddy’s religio-commercial enterprise. ‘They were at 
 one another’s throats and fought with true Christian 
 Science bitterness. Each side professed loyalty to the 
 “‘ Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science,” and 
 each side accused the other of gross disloyalty. And 
 both sides were completely disloyal to her wishes, as ex- 
 
 180 
 
 I HAVE before me the testimony in the now cele- 
 
AUTOCRATS 181 
 
 pressed in her “‘ sacred ” by-laws, when advantage was 
 expected therefrom. Incidentally, the testimony of 
 each side disclosed that the parties of the other had 
 been making money “ hand-over-fist ” out of their pro- 
 fessed religion. In many respects the testimony of 
 witnesses on one side of the case contradicted the testi- 
 mony of witnesses on the other. Christian Scientists 
 will, therefore, find it hard to believe the testimony of 
 both witnesses, when one contradicts the other: but 
 uncontradicted testimony of their leaders, given under 
 oath, I must assume they will believe. Personally, I 
 believe them all, with reservations. When the trustees 
 testified that the directors falsified, I believe the 
 trustees; and when the directors testified that the 
 trustees falsified, I believe the directors. 
 
 I am not going to discuss the issues involved in this 
 famous litigation, or express any opinion as to where 
 the merit lay; but shall endeavour, merely to extract 
 such information regarding Christian Science and the 
 methods and character of its present-day leaders as 
 may be found in their own testimony given under oath. 
 I have waded through this immense volume of a million 
 words of testimony and arrived at certain definite re- 
 sults that must be accepted by all, especially by all 
 Christian Scientists. 
 
 First, as to the numerical strength of Christian 
 Science, information most carefully suppressed by all 
 in authority, in accordance with Mrs. Eddy’s edict 
 forbidding publicity thereof. While a disclosure of 
 church-memberships is refused, even to the authorities 
 of the United States Government, the most preposter- 
 ous claims of the number of believers constantly 
 emanate from authoritative quarters. Mrs. Eddy, her- 
 self, as early as 1883, claimed a million and her repre- 
 
182 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 sentatives have taken their cue from her. Mié£illions, 
 two, three or five millions, are the confident assertions 
 unofficially made. 
 
 So level-headed a man as Mark Twain was sadly 
 misled by these pronouncements, and, relying upon 
 them, expressed his contempt for the grossness of the 
 credulity implied, by predicting that in 1920 they 
 would number thirteen million and in 1930 thirty-nine 
 million. Why do men of brains permit themselves to 
 prophesy? Mr. Clemen’s prediction for 1920 was 
 shown to be ten thousand per cent., and more, greater 
 than the fact. 
 
 The latest official figures of the strength of Christian 
 Science in the United States are those of the Census of 
 1910. When these figures were gathered the rule pro- 
 hibiting disclosure had not been made and the numbers 
 were freely given. The total was 85,717, but, as half 
 of the members of the Boston church were counted also 
 as members of their local churches, the actual total was 
 not far from 65,000. After forty years of intense 
 activity, Mrs. Eddy’s followers in the United States 
 numbered 65,000, and no more. If Mrs. Eddy was 
 accurate when she said, in 1883, that there were then a 
 million, what a falling off there was! 
 
 The chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bos- 
 ton church testified that he didn’t know how many 
 members the church had and that he didn’t know the 
 value of the church property he was handling as 
 trustee, or director; but we can arrive at very accurate 
 figures from other testimony. 
 
 The rules of the Boston church require members to 
 be subscribers to The Christian Science Journal, and 
 an applicant for membership in any of the other 
 churches is invariably asked if he is a subscriber. The 
 
AUTOCRATS 183 
 
 number of subscribers to the Journal is, then, an indi- 
 cation of the possible maximum of church members. 
 The sale is far in excess of the membership, as many 
 are sold for libraries and for free distribution. None 
 are given away by the publishers. So it is clear that 
 there cannot be more church-members than there are 
 subscribers, and the number of subscribers includes the 
 whole world. 
 
 John R. Watts, business manager of the Christian 
 Science Publishing Society, made oath that the 
 actual paid circulation of the Journal was 95,000. 
 So there you have it. In 1919 the circulation of the 
 official organ of Christian Science totalled 95,000, 
 and membership must have been under that num- 
 ber. What becomes of Mark Twain’s thirteen million 
 in 1920? 
 
 The Christian Science Monitor is the daily organ of 
 the cult and Mrs. Eddy definitely asked all to sub- 
 scribe to it. Mr. Watts testified that a million dollars 
 had been sunk to get the Monitor on its feet; and that 
 the actual paid circulation of the Monitor was 108,000, 
 but of these, 37,000 were for camp-welfare work. Up- 
 wards of a couple of hundred thousand dollars of the 
 funds subscribed for the benefit of soldiers in camp 
 were turned in to the Christian Science Publishing 
 Society to convert soldiers to Christian Science; to 
 bring them to a realisation that evil, war, “is nothing, 
 because it is the absence of something,” ‘‘ that the five 
 physical senses are the avenues and instruments of 
 human error,” ‘“‘ that the brain does not think nor the 
 nerves feel,” “that the less mind there is manifested 
 in matter the better,” that ‘‘ the body cannot die,” that 
 “when the unthinking lobster loses its claw, the claw 
 grows again, and if the science of life were under- 
 
184 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 stood, . . . then the human limb would be replaced 
 as readily as the lobster’s claw.”’ Two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars for that stuff,—for soldiers preparing 
 for battle! 
 
 Deducting the 37,000 used to make Christian Scien- 
 tists of American soldiers and called camp-welfare 
 work, there remain 71,000; but that conveys a false 
 impression, as many thousands were bought of the 
 Publishing Society for free distribution. I know of a 
 woman who subscribed for thirty copies, at a cost of 
 over two hundred dollars, for the convicts of the Cali- 
 fornia State Prison,—to make Christian Scientists of 
 them, to educate condemned criminals to the helpful 
 Christian Science doctrine, that “ evil has no reality ” 
 and ‘“‘ man is incapable of sin.” 
 
 So it appears that church membership did not in- 
 crease at all from 1910 to 1919, and 65,000 remained 
 the number. Indeed there was alarm in Christian- 
 Sciencedom over actual falling off. In one of his frank 
 and confidential letters to his associates on the Board, 
 Director Dittemore said: “The constant decrease in 
 members admitted to the Mother Church since 1915, 
 which has today reached a point where on April 20 
 [1918] we had 541 less than last year’s spring admis- 
 sions alone, must surely mean something.” Yea, 
 verily! 
 
 That it may not be overlooked, I here set down the 
 fact that the testimony developed the significant cir- 
 cumstance that this honest director had charged that 
 The Christian Science Monitor had falsely represented 
 that Christian Science funds in the amount of one mil- 
 lion, three hundred thousand dollars had been sent 
 over seas for the soldiers, when not more than thirty 
 per cent. of that amount had been spent on overseas 
 
 \ 
 
AUTOCRATS 185 
 
 work, and demanded that a correction be published. 
 The other members of the Board did not deny the 
 truth of the charge, but published no correction. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy died, or as Christian Scientists put it, 
 “passed on,” December 3, 1910. As “there is no 
 death,” she couldn’t, of course, die; so just “ passed 
 on.” Her non-existent material body was securely de- 
 posited in the centre of a huge mass of solid concrete, 
 so that only the judgment-trump might summon her 
 forth. It cannot be contended that Mrs. Eddy’s de- 
 mise was premature, as she exceeded the allotted three 
 score and ten by some nineteen years; but it does seem 
 to me a reflection upon her healers and discredit to her 
 system that she should have died. Amongst the many 
 _ healers, who were trying to save her by denying the 
 _ reality of death, there does not appear to have been one 
 - of first class mental-healing powers. They had been 
 taught by their aged patient that, “ If the student ad- 
 heres strictly to the teachings of Christian Science, and 
 ventures not to break its rules, he cannot fail of success 
 in healing ”’; and the combined efforts of a multitude of 
 healers failed to prolong their inspired leader’s life by 
 a single breath. Not only that, the best available 
 medical skill also failed; but medicine admits the inevi- 
 tableness of death and professes no infallibility. Med- 
 ical skill eased her last moments; but pronounced cure 
 hopeless. There was complete secrecy about regular 
 _ medical attendance upon Mrs. Eddy during her last 
 _ illness, and the physician, himself, reluctantly assented 
 to it, being moved by pity for her condition. A very 
 aged woman, in extremis, was surrounded by a lot of 
 ignoramuses, who denied her illness and declared she 
 could not die; so Dr. put professional ethics suf- 
 ficiently aside to administer a sedative or an opiate and 
 
 
 
186 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 tranquilise the end. He called repeatedly; was present, 
 it is said, at her “ passing.” Was her teaching that 
 “man is incapable of sin, sickness and death,” in Mrs. 
 Eddy’s flickering consciousness when she died? 
 
 Besides the Eustace vs. Dickey suit, to which I have 
 referred, another suit against Dickey and three other 
 directors was brought, and was pending at the same 
 time, by Director Dittemore. The Eustace suit was 
 brought by the trustees against the directors to restrain 
 the directors from relieving them of their six thousand 
 dollar jobs as managers of the publishing business; and 
 Dittemore, a director, brought his suit against the other 
 directors to prevent them from dismissing him from his 
 office as director. ‘The other four directors, with 
 Dickey at their head, appear to have determined to 
 make their power absolutely autocratic by eliminating 
 all opposition. In my use of the testimony for the 
 purpose of arriving at an estimate of the type of men 
 now in control of Christian Science affairs, I shall take 
 the testimony, whether given in one suit or the other, 
 and without constantly indicating the one in which it 
 was given. It is all sworn testimony and all the testi- 
 mony of Christian Scientists. 
 
 The death of Mrs. Eddy left the Board of Directors 
 of the Boston church the supreme authority, the All- 
 highest in Christian-Sciencedom. ‘The Board is self- 
 perpetuating. Members of the church have no form of 
 control over it. As originally constituted by Mrs. 
 Eddy’s deed of trust it consisted of four members; 
 but, later, by a by-law of the church, she attempted to 
 increase it to five. The board is the custodian of 
 church funds, and the original four, or their successors, 
 hold the title to all church property. It is the sole 
 judge of its powers and does as it pleases. Church 
 
AUTOCRATS 187 
 
 ‘members have nothing to say about the use of the 
 funds they contribute and no voice in the selection of 
 any official. At the start, Mrs. Eddy, for the purpose 
 of gratifying her closest associates, created a body 
 known as the ‘“ First Members,” which, for a while, 
 taking its orders from her, had some participation in 
 the church government. The régime of the First 
 Members was brief. Mrs. Eddy found them less man- 
 ageable than the smaller Board of Directors, and arbi- 
 trarily ended their official existence. By her direction 
 they transferred all their powers, including the power 
 to make by-laws, to the Board; and under the power 
 thus cenferred upon the Board by the, “ First Mem- 
 bers,” the Board abolished the First Members. There- 
 after and until her death, the Board, at Mrs. Eddy’s 
 dictation, made or altered the by-laws, appointed or 
 removed officials and disbursed church funds. One of 
 the by-laws so made required directors and all other 
 church officers “‘ promptly to comply with any written 
 order signed by Mary Baker Eddy, which applies to 
 their official functions,” upon penalty of dismissal from 
 office. And another provided that no by-law should 
 ever be changed with Mrs. Eddy’s consent. There 
 never was an instrument more servile than this Board 
 of five men, more completely responsive to a beck or a 
 nod, than it was to the beck or the nod of its creator. 
 It smiled when she smiled; it frowned when she 
 frowned; it obeyed when she commanded. 
 
 And this grovelling creature of Mrs. Eddy now 
 stands in her place; holds the power of life and death 
 over all officials; has its exclusive grip on the purse- 
 strings; commands as she commanded; dictates as she 
 dictated; governs as she governed, despotically. As 
 nothing could have been more abject than its submis- 
 
‘188 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 sion to her, so nothing could be more autocratic than its 
 power and disposition since Mrs. Eddy’s death. 
 
 As this Church is quite unique, let me present its 
 character in the words of General Frank S. Streeter, for 
 many years Mrs. Eddy’s personal counsel, her adviser 
 in all matters relating to the establishment and control 
 of the church and her relations with its officials, and 
 her large personal interests. In an address to the 
 Board of Directors, in September, 1915, General 
 Streeter said: 
 
 “My reflections on the present situation led me, among 
 other things, to review the original foundation upon which 
 this board was established, and to consider the anomalous 
 form of the religious organisation by which it was at- 
 tempted to concentrate in this board of five men not only 
 the exclusive and final control of all the spiritual affairs 
 of the members of the great Mother Church, but also, in- 
 combination therewith, to vest in this board the supreme 
 and final control of vast properties, including trust funds 
 of some three million dollars, with the exclusive power of 
 disposing of an annual income now amounting to around 
 four hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 “ By this form of organisation the five members of the 
 board stand in a position practically without precedent in 
 modern history. No other board in the English-speaking 
 world is vested with such a combination of exclusive and 
 unrevisable power over spiritual and property concerns as 
 this board seems to possess on the face of the creating 
 documents. I use the word seems advisedly, because I 
 am convinced that these powers, although not so intended, 
 are not immutable, but are probably subject to change or 
 modification if occasion therefor arises. ... 
 
 “Tn the eyes of the world you five men are Mrs. Eddy’s 
 representatives, created by her to conserve after her death 
 what she had built up, to promote and extend her religious 
 
AUTOCRATS 189 
 
 doctrines, to manage the property interests which she left 
 for their support. The form of your organisation, how- 
 ever wise and necessary it may seem to you to be, is 
 naturally calculated to excite human jealousy. The mem- 
 bers of the Mother Church have the entire beneficial in- 
 terest in the church property and church management, 
 while, under the present organisation, they are deprived 
 of all actual control of either.” 
 
 Such is the organisation, created by Mrs. Eddy, and 
 existing in this year of grace, 1925, in the City of 
 Boston, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
 U. S. A. The constitution of Massachusetts guaran- 
 tees to all religious organisations a congregational form 
 of government; and when any member of the Christian 
 Science Church in Boston Is self-respecting and cou- 
 rageous enough to take the matter into the courts of 
 the Commonwealth for adjudication, the Eddy anach- 
 ronism will be torn asunder and the church members 
 placed in control of their funds and church government. 
 Of all places in the world, America is the last where 
 such an ecclesiastical despotism should be tolerated. 
 
 I am not skilled in portraiture, but let me essay a 
 pen-and-ink sketch of each of these five directors 
 drawn from testimony given by themselves and their 
 official subordinates, all professedly devout Christian 
 Scientists; and, first, of the chairman of the board, 
 Mr. Adam H. Dickey. 
 
 The testimony discloses that Dickey obtained his 
 daily bread in the clay-products business prior to his 
 adoption of Christian Science as his religion and busi- 
 ness. Before coming under Mrs. Eddy’s notice, he 
 was, for some years, an inconspicuous “ healer.” As 
 “healers ” were not permitted to engage in other busi- 
 
190 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 ness, Dickey presumably derived his subsistence from 
 present and absent mental treatments of the sick. By 
 virtue of the authority conferred upon her by the rule 
 of her church, dictated by her, that any member must 
 respond to her summons for personal service in her 
 home, Mrs. Eddy, three years before her death, sum- 
 moned Dickey for such service. He appears to have 
 occupied the position of assistant to secretary-footman 
 Calvin A. Frye, sometimes taking letters at Mrs. 
 Eddy’s dictation and sometimes attending her, with 
 Frye, on her daily drives. Frye for many years ac- 
 companied Mrs. Eddy on her drives, either holding the 
 reins over the horses or sitting by the coachman’s side, 
 and always in a flunkey’s uniform. Upon her death, 
 for reasons that can be surmised, the one-time flunkey 
 was made President of the Boston church. 
 
 I happened to be in Chestnut Hill shortly before her 
 death when Mrs. Eddy was driving with Frye and 
 Dickey. She was in a dying condition, but kept up the 
 pretext of health by driving daily. Borne to the car- 
 riage by Frye and Dickey, I saw the stately cortége 
 descend the driveway of her home, and stopped on the 
 walk as it passed. Frye occupied his accustomed seat 
 by the coachman and Dickey sat with Mrs. Eddy, hold- 
 ing her erect with both arms. Although somewhat pre- 
 pared for it, I was shocked at the spectacle presented 
 by Mrs. Eddy. Swaying backward and forward, she 
 Jooked a hundred and fifty years old. A thick coating 
 of rouge took the place of youthful bloom. Her eyes 
 were closed. Death itself is not more deathly in aspect. 
 Upon her head was a millinery creation, resplendent in 
 colours, a girl of sixteen might have envied. I experi- 
 enced a feeling of faintness when the carriage had 
 passed, 
 
AUTOCRATS Yor 
 
 And now, in 1925, the assistant-secretary-footman is 
 Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mother 
 Church, ruler in chief of its destiny, custodian in chief 
 of its funds. Mr. Dickey has made a “ good thing,” 
 for Dickey, out of his custodianship of funds entrusted 
 to him and his co-directors, for the spread of the “ re- 
 ligion of Christian Science.” Something like fifteen 
 thousand dollars is annually diverted for religious 
 propaganda to Dickey’s pocket. This is interesting 
 and rests wholly upon Dickey’s sworn testimony. 
 
 One of the by-laws made by Mrs. Eddy for her 
 church provides for a committee on finance whose 
 duty it shall be, amongst other things, to see that the 
 directors obey the by-laws. “In case of any possible 
 deviation from duty,” says the by-law, ‘ the Com- 
 mittee on Finance shall visit the Board of Directors, 
 and, in a Christian spirit and manner, demand that 
 each member thereof comply with the by-laws of the 
 church.” The members of this committee are ap- 
 pointed by the men they are to hold to obedience of 
 church laws. 
 
 Another of the by-laws, made by Mrs. Eddy for her 
 church, is: ‘‘ The salary of the members of the Board 
 of Directors shall be at present two thousand five hun- 
 dred dollars annually.” That is obviously one of the 
 by-laws the committee on finance was to see that the 
 directors obeyed. 
 
 Now, there came a time when Dickey and his co- 
 directors wanted more of the trust funds in their hands 
 than the church laws allowed them. They wanted to 
 disregard the by-law limiting their salaries to twenty- 
 five hundred dollars; so they applied for help to the 
 committee whose duty it was to compel them, in a 
 Christian spirit, to obey it. The committee was the 
 
192 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 creature of the directors, and the directors well knew 
 that they could rely upon obedience from this com- 
 mittee that was constituted to exact obedience from the 
 directors. It worked to a charm. The directors said 
 to the committee, we want ten thousand a year instead 
 of the twenty-five hundred given us by Section 9 of 
 Article 1 of the by-laws; and the Committee on Finance 
 told them, in substance, to disregard the by-law and 
 help themselves. So the directors helped themselves 
 to thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars of the 
 trust funds, per year more than the laws of the church 
 gave them. ‘Thirty-seven thousand five hundred dol- 
 lars a year were diverted from the spread of Christian 
 Science gospel to the private pockets of the men into 
 whose hands it had come for the spreading of that 
 gospel. Dickey was foremost of those who thus lined 
 their own pockets with trust funds. But the di- 
 rectors were advised of the law of the land, as well 
 as their church law, when they helped themselves 
 to church funds. General Streeter urged them not 
 to do it; advised them that it would be illegal and 
 highly prejudicial to the interests in their charge. 
 Speaking of the illegality of trustees appropriating 
 trust funds to their own use, he said to the Board of 
 Directors: 
 
 “It is a thoroughly well settled equitable rule that any- 
 one acting in a fiduciary relation shall not be permitted to 
 make use of that relation to benefit his own personal in- 
 terest. This rule is strict in its requirements and in its 
 operation. It extends to all transactions where the indi- 
 vidual’s personal interests may be brought in conflict with 
 his vote in the fiduciary capacity; and it works inde- 
 pendently of the question whether there was fraud or 
 whether there was good intention. Where there is the 
 
 
 
AUTOCRATS 193 
 
 possibility such a conflict exists, there is the danger in- 
 tended to be guarded against by the absoluteness of 
 the law. 
 
 “Under the settled rule of law, of which the foregoing 
 quotations are a few of many examples, it seems clear that 
 a vote passed by the Christian Science Board of Directors 
 increasing their own salary would have no legal validity 
 and would be open to attack at the suit of any member of 
 the church, for the reason that every church member is 
 equitably or beneficially interested in the funds from 
 which such salary increase will be taken. The equitable 
 or beneficial interest of such member in the church funds 
 does not seem to be affected by the fact that under the 
 By-Laws the control and management of the funds are 
 exclusively vested in the Board of Directors. Such a suit 
 might be brought certainly in Suffolk County, and, if the 
 New Hampshire law in a somewhat analogous case should 
 be adopted, in any County in Massachusetts. It might 
 also be brought in the Federal Court for the District of 
 Massachusetts. .. . 
 
 “Even if the technical legal right of the directors to 
 increase their own salary were clear, as the foregoing con- 
 siderations show that it is not, the question of the practical 
 expediency of the proposed action would, in my judgment, 
 be a very grave one. To a greater extent than any other 
 religious movement in the western world for nineteen 
 hundred years, Christan Science owes its origin and 
 growth to a single personality, viz., its discoverer and 
 founder, Mary Baker G. Eddy. For this reason it seems 
 to me of the utmost importance that, at any rate during 
 these early years following her decease, the Christian 
 Science Board of Directors, which has succeeded to her 
 leadership so far as anybody can succeed thereto, should 
 refrain from any action tending to impair the confidence 
 of Christian Scientists in their leadership or to afford the 
 enemies of Christian Science ground for impugning their 
 motives and good faith. And in my judgment no action 
 
194 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 better calculated to create suspicion and adverse criticism 
 could well be taken than for the directors to lay them- 
 selves open to the charge of using their official powers to 
 advance their own pecuniary interest almost as soon as 
 Mrs. Eddy’s guiding hand has been removed.” 
 
 The directors heard General Streeter and, undeterred 
 by his argument and his urging, voted themselves 
 seventy-five hundred dollars apiece increase in salary 
 to be taken from funds for the spread of their “ re- 
 ligion.” They did it secretly; they mutilated their 
 records by taking from them matters relating to the 
 salary grab; they voted thirty-seven thousand five 
 hundred dollars a year out of the church treasury into 
 their own purses. 
 
 Besides this ten thousand a year that Mr. Dickey 
 makes out of his Christian Science, he takes about five 
 thousand a year from the testamentary fund estab- 
 lished by Mrs. Eddy’s will for the spread “ of the re- 
 ligion of Christian Science”; and, to that extent, 
 defeats Mrs. Eddy’s purpose. It thus appears that 
 Christian Science is a decidedly “ good thing” for 
 Dickey. But he gets even more out of it. He is a 
 teacher and a healer. Teaching pays him something 
 like three thousand per annum and healing an uncertain 
 amount. To be fair to him, I should say that Dickey 
 testified that some of his healing treatments were free. 
 That is, he sometimes didn’t charge for giving mental 
 treatment, which consisted in not merely declaring that 
 there is no sickness, but in ‘‘ knowing ” that there is 
 none. For such generosity Dickey should have full 
 credit. As his business, Christian Science pays Dickey 
 eighteen thousand dollars a year, fifteen thousand from 
 funds for conversion of Christian heathen. What re- 
 
 
 
AUTOCRATS 195 
 
 turn it makes to him as his “ religion,” the testimony of 
 Mr. Dickey doesn’t show. 
 
 Beside being a very grasping person, the head of 
 organised Christian Science appears to be a shock- 
 ingly vulgar fellow, his special vulgarity being the 
 sexually obscene. For this kind of obscenity, he was 
 repeatedly called to order at Board meetings. Let me 
 give testimony regarding Dickey’s propensity for the 
 obscene precisely as it appears in the record; and to 
 be entirely fair let me take the testimony of Director 
 Neal, Dickey’s close friend and co-defendant in the law 
 suits. The defendant, Neal, is on the witness stand 
 and the questions and answers are as follows: 
 
 “Q. Did you ever hear Mr. Dickey apologise to Mr. 
 Dittemore for improper talk to him in these board 
 meetings ? 
 
 “A, I heard him apologise to Mr. Dittemore for 
 
 “Q. My question is, did you ever hear him apologise 
 for talk? 
 
 “A. I heard him apologise, yes. 
 
 “©. How many times? 
 
 “A, To Mr, Dittemore? 
 
 i eS. 
 
 “A. Once, that I remember. 
 
 “Q. Did he apologise to anybody else? 
 
 “A. Apologised to the board. 
 
 “Q. For what? 
 
 “A. For some remark that wasn’t very nice. 
 
 “©. You mean some little shady jest that he made? 
 
 “A. I think that would be all right. 
 
 “QO. A little bit verging on the obscene, wasn’t it? 
 
 Ten ess Sita, 
 
 
 
 After some hesitation I incorporate here a somewhat 
 
196 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 lengthy extract from the official report of Judge Fred- 
 eric Dodge, appointed by the court in the case of Ditte- 
 more vs. Dickey and others to take the testimony of 
 witnesses and report it with his findings to the court, as 
 showing matters with which the Christian Science 
 Board of Directors busied itself and Dickey’s fancy for 
 things that gentlemen, not to speak of religious leaders, 
 avoid. Judge Dodge reported that: 
 
 “There were occasions in 1917, 1918, and 1919 upon 
 which, at meetings of the Directors, the plaimtsff (Ditte- 
 more) expressed disapproval of utterances by Dickey of 
 a kind tolerated only when men only, and men not dis- 
 posed to be scrupulous in such matters, are the hearers,— 
 thereby arousing resentment on Dickey’s part, and some- 
 times on the part of Merritt and Rathvon. Regarding 
 one of such occurrences there was testimony from Dickey, 
 Merritt and Neal at the former hearing. It occurred, as I 
 understand, in the testimony then given, on August 13, 
 1918. . . . Suggestions and hints had come to the Board 
 tending to bring one of its employees under suspicion for 
 adultery, in discussing which, upon an ambiguous allusion 
 by Merritt to the accused’s name, Dickey made a joke of 
 the kind indicated, which, among the others, aroused some 
 merriment; but the plaintiff (Dittemore) protested, in 
 substance characterising the joke as indecent. Dickey, at 
 first angered by the protest, later expressed his regret and 
 apologised, as he himself admitted. 
 
 “Further testimony regarding this occurrence at the 
 present hearing, by the plaintiff (Dittemore) and the three 
 defendants above named, has not modified in any essential 
 feature what had before appeared, as above stated. ‘The 
 plaintiff (Dittemore), testifying from memoranda claimed 
 to have been made at the time, gave the date on which the 
 objectionable joke was made as April 28, 1918, and said 
 that the apology came upon some later date which he could 
 
 
 
AUTOCRATS 197 
 
 not exactly fix. The same case was considered by the 
 Board upon many different dates in 1918, and the precise 
 date of the apology has not been regarded as important 
 under the circumstances. A statement by Merritt, first 
 made on this hearing, was that, in connection with this 
 occurrence, he and Neal demanded apologies from the 
 plaintiff (Dittemore), which he refused to give, for ex- 
 pressing surprise that ‘the members of the Board would 
 have a lot of lewd talk here.’ Neal, however, while re- 
 membering that something of the kind once occurred, did 
 not remember it as having occurred at the same meeting. 
 
 “The plaintiff (Dittemore) testified to other protests 
 by him against utterances by Dickey at directors’ meet- 
 ings founded upon like objections to the character of what 
 was said. If what the plaintiff testified to was in fact 
 said, it was open to such objection, The occasions testi- 
 fied to were as below. 
 
 “(1) Upon some date in 1917 before September, and 
 thus before either Merritt or Rathvon were directors, 
 during a report by McLellan upon charges against a New 
 York church official of improper relations with a married 
 woman practitioner. 
 
 “(2) Upon January 17, 1918, before Rathvon was a 
 director. But upon this occasion it does not appear that 
 the plaintiff’s protest was orally made, or so as to attract 
 Dickey’s attention at the time. 
 
 “(3) On November 14, 1918, during consideration by 
 the Board of the case of a man charged with adultery. 
 
 “(4) On some date in 1918 after December 16, during 
 the discussion of alleged immoralities among members of 
 a church. 
 
 “(5) On January 24, 1919, during a discussion of 
 charges against a church member of adultery and the use 
 of means to prevent conception or produce abortion. 
 
 “Dickey denied having used the objectionable language 
 testified to by the plaintiff on each of these occassons. 
 Regarding occasion (1) above, the only other director at 
 
198 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 the time who testified, did not recall that Dickey said 
 what the plaintiff charged, but could not positively deny 
 that he did. Regarding occasion (2) Neal’s testimony 
 was substantially the same; Merritt’s testimony was that 
 he never heard it. Regarding occasion (3), Dickey’s de- 
 nial was supported by Merritt and Rathvon, but Neal ad- 
 mitted having heard Dickey use such language as the 
 plaintiff charged, as he thought, on some different occa- 
 sion. Regarding the occurrence (4), Merritt’s and Rath- 
 von’s testimony tended to support Dickey’s denial, but 
 Neal admitted having heard Dickey make a remark such 
 as the plaintiff charged, though in connection with a dif- 
 ferent church. Regarding the occurrence (5), the dis- 
 cussion then being had involved subjects in themselves 
 necessarily offensive. Merritt and Rathvon did not recall 
 Dickey having talked about them to the extent and in the 
 manner charged by the plaintiff, though they remembered 
 the discussion. Neal, though present, disclaimed any 
 recollection of the case. 
 
 “ Notwithstanding the contradictions, as above, of the 
 plaintiff's (Dittemore’s) testimony regarding these occur- 
 rences, I am obliged to find that his account of them is, in 
 substance, true. The only alternative is to hold him guilty 
 of wilful and premeditated falsification; this I am unable 
 to do. \ 
 
 “Two occurrences, somewhat different in character, re- 
 main to be mentioned. The earliest was in March or 
 April, 1915, the Board having under consideration at the 
 time charges necessarily involving details, most offensive 
 in kind, against two women. According to the plaintiff’s 
 testimony one of them was questioned by Dickey at a 
 length and with a minuteness which led not only himself, 
 but McLellan and Neal as well, to protest that he had gone 
 far enough. Dickey testified that he ‘ made no such ques- 
 tion,’ was unconscious of having gone further than rea- 
 sonably necessary to get at the facts, and that no protest 
 was made; but Neal, the only other defendant present on 
 
 
 
AUTOCRATS 199 
 
 the occasion, admitted that he and the plaintiff did protest, 
 on the ground stated by the plaintiff. I consider the sub- 
 stantial truth of the plaintiff's testimony about this occur- 
 rence established; but his further testimony was, that he 
 recalls no distinct or lasting effect from it upon his rela- 
 tions with Dickey. The occurrence has therefore been 
 considered only in its bearing upon the probabilities when 
 other conflicting testimony has had to be weighed. 
 
 “On December 16, 1918, during an investigation by the 
 Board of much the same nature as the foregoing, Dickey 
 reported to them the results of a private interview he had 
 had with one of the accused women. His report, orally 
 made at considerable length, was that she had been guilty 
 of the misconduct charged, and in it he dwelt upon details 
 learned from her, telling the Board in substance, among 
 other things, that his experience in such cases had been 
 exceptional and extensive. The plaintiff objected, as he 
 testified, that the report was ‘absolutely improper and 
 nauseating ’"—a criticism that excited Dickey’s anger mani- 
 fested by his manner and expression. 
 
 “Dickey, not denying that his report had included de- 
 tails admitted by the accused, better omitted here, and that 
 she had been very frank in talking with him, denied that 
 there was any protest or objection from the plaintiff. 
 Merritt remembered the report and some of the features 
 as admitted by Dickey; that there was a protest by the 
 plaintiff, resented by Dickey, he did not deny. Rathvon 
 remembered the case, but did not recall some of the state- 
 ments attributed to Dickey, while denying others. Neal 
 did not remember the case at all. 
 
 “ Regarding this occurrence also, I am obliged to con- 
 sider the substantial truth of the plaintiff's testimony as 
 established.” 
 
 For the benefit of those not acquainted with court 
 proceedings, I repeat that the foregoing quotations are 
 
200 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 made from the official report of Judge Dodge to the 
 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, after taking 
 all the testimony in the cases. He swore all the wit- 
 nesses to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing 
 but the truth; he saw them upon the witness stand; he 
 heard them examined by their own counsel and cross- 
 examined by counsel for the opposition, and, amongst 
 others, he found the facts to be as stated in the part of 
 his report quoted. A careful reading of the extract 
 will show that Judge Dodge decided that, on numerous 
 occasions, at meetings of the Board of Directors of 
 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, of Boston, the 
 chairman of the Board, Adam H. Dickey, who pro- 
 fessed exceptional and extensive experience in such 
 cases, in discussion of adulteries of officials and church 
 members and sexually degenerate practices between 
 women church members, used language and made jokes 
 of such a character as to call forth vigourous protests 
 by other members, who declared them to be disgusting 
 and obscene to the point of nausea. 
 
 I especially call attention, also, to the statement of 
 Judge Dodge that, when there was a conflict of testi- 
 mony between Directors Dickey and Dittemore, he 
 believed Dittemore, because otherwise he would have 
 had to find Dittemore a wilful and deliberate falsifer, 
 which he was unable to do. No such feeling, however, 
 deterred the Judge from finding, by necessary implica- 
 tion, that Dickey’s denials were wholly false. 
 
 Let us make a prodigous supposition. Suppose that 
 in a Christian religious organisation—Episcopal, Pres- 
 byterian, Methodist, Baptist, or any other—the very 
 highest official was known to have helped himself to 
 seventy-five hundred dollars a year of trust funds of 
 which he was one of the guardians, in direct defiance of 
 
 
 
AUTOCRATS 201 
 
 the law of the church and in legal proceedings had been 
 found to be an habitual user of foul and obscene lan- 
 guage, what would happen to that official? He would 
 be ousted from his position forthwith, and avoided by 
 all decent men and women. 
 
 , But there is nobody to oust Dickey. Dickey will 
 - continue to rule Christian-Sciencedom. Mrs. Eddy 
 knew him well; he had lived in her house and been her 
 personal attendant for three years; she demanded his 
 election to the Christian Science Board of Directors, 
 and what Mrs. Eddy wanted was God’s will. To re- 
 pudiate Dickey is to repudiate Mrs. Eddy and to 
 repudiate Mrs. Eddy is to cease to be a Christian 
 Scientist. 
 
 Of Directors Neal, Merritt and Rathvon little need 
 be said. They have all been “healers ”* for many 
 years.—Neal for almost thirty-five, Merritt for thirty 
 and Rathvon for almost as long. They are just the 
 kind of men who make good “healers”; for to be a 
 “healer ” requires no education and no capital. It 
 needs only a disposition to find “‘ easy money.” They 
 all participated with Dickey in the salary grab and, in 
 the litigation, stood on all points with him. They seem 
 to have enjoyed Dickey’s obscenity; but, to do Neal 
 justice, he told the truth about it on the witness stand; 
 and, on one occasion, when Dickey was especially out- 
 rageous, Neal protested that he was going too far. 
 Rathvon, like Dickey, had the high distinction of serv- 
 ing Mrs. Eddy in her home in some domestic capacity, 
 secretary, he said. He and Dickey served there to- 
 gether and for about the same length of time. One of 
 these directors passed from the clay-products business 
 to the “ healing ” business; another gave up a connec- 
 tion with a stone concern, and another slipped into 
 
202 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 “healing ” from oil. So much for the majority mem- 
 bers of the Board; but there is, or was, a minority, a 
 very strenuous and active and protesting and, conse- 
 quently, obnoxious minority of one. 
 
 John V. Dittemore had been a member of this 
 famous Board since 1909, and during the greater part 
 of his term had been distinctly critical of the action of 
 the Board and the conduct of its members. He con- 
 sistently stood for honesty and decency in all its acts 
 and utterances. Accusing it of “ arrogance, autocracy, 
 pharisaism, unmercifulness and incompetence which 
 cannot be healed,” he declared that it ‘“‘ must be ruled 
 out or those expressing those qualities must go.” He 
 accused them of dishonesty in their publications and 
 when the Board, notwithstanding his protest, appropri- 
 ated twenty-seven thousand dollars of the money 
 contributed for camp-welfare work to buy, of the pub- 
 lishing end of their business, ten thousand Bibles for 
 the soldiers, Dittemore denounced the charge as exces- 
 sive. Bibles, good Bibles, extremely good Bibles can 
 be bought, and could then be bought, for fifty cents 
 each; and this Board decided to pay itself two dollars 
 and seventy cents apiece for Bibles for soldiers! 
 
 Dickey and the other majority members of the 
 Board didn’t like the minority member, Dittemore. 
 No wonder! He wanted them to be decent and honest, 
 and persistently sought to make them so. ‘“ Why,” he 
 asked them, “‘ should we expect the real estate fund of 
 the ‘ Mother Church’ to grow and meet our needs, 
 when there is the opposite of love, compassion and 
 unity expressed on this Board?” ‘‘ Why should we 
 expect the Mother Church attendance should come out 
 of its years of stagnation, and increase, unless we pro- 
 duce the occasion for it?” “The exchanges in the 
 
AUTOCRATS 203 
 
 Sentinel are not always honest,” he contended, “ inas- 
 much as the article as a whole, if published, would 
 usually contradict the sentiment of the detached sen- 
 tence or paragraph quoted.” He made a motion that 
 no “form of discipline shall be taken without giving 
 the accused an adequate opportunity to be heard,” and 
 his motion was not even seconded. He objected to the 
 mutilation of the official record of the Board, and con- 
 sistently stood for sincerity and disinterestedness and 
 cleanness. To eliminate this troublesome obstacle, the 
 majority members passed a resolution by which they 
 attempted to remove him from office. Dittemore ap- 
 pealed to the courts, but the court decided that the 
 majority had power to separate him from his directorial 
 office, and the objectionable minority member ceased 
 from troubling Dickey. 
 
 It is true that Dittemore, for a time, took his in- 
 crease of salary with the others; but, when convinced 
 of his at least questionable right to it, he returned the 
 increase by a check for upwards of ten thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 One cannot read the testimony in this litigation 
 without a conviction that it would be well for Christian 
 Science if all its high officials were of the Dittemore 
 type. But Dickey and his associates are much more 
 truly representative of its “ founder and discoverer,” 
 Mary Baker G. Eddy. ‘I think she has never allowed 
 a dollar, that had no friends, to get’ by alive,” said 
 Mark Twain; and her successors in authority pay her 
 the compliment of emulating her high example. The 
 powers that be are no less greedy, no less sordid, no less 
 despotic than their revered “leader.” No one else 
 could be so boldly and fantastically untruthful as she. 
 Such are the men now in control of organised Chris- 
 
 — 
 
204 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 tian Science. While Mrs. Eddy lived they were her 
 tools. Since her death, they have become autocrats. 
 Church members cannot make or break them. Be they 
 Dickeys or Dittemores, the membership must accept 
 them as the supreme authority. However vulgar, 
 obscene, dishonest, the members are powerless, except 
 by appeal to the courts, to escape from their govern- 
 , ment. Except by resignation, a vacancy on the Board 
 ' can only be caused by death; and a vacancy can be 
 filled only by action of the remaining directors.+ The 
 powers Mrs. Eddy took upon herself, are now the 
 directors’. They admit and excommunicate church 
 members and do as they please with church funds. 
 They appoint and, at pleasure, remove all officials of 
 the Boston church. They control the officials of all 
 branch churches and, through the officials, the mem- 
 bers thereof. Christian Scientists have not the same 
 reverence for their present governors that they had for 
 Mrs. Eddy, but the by-laws are their authority and 
 Mrs. Eddy framed every by-law. Besides, how can 
 objection be made by a church member to by-laws he 
 assented to when making application for membership? 
 It is a strange, a passing strange situation. There isa 
 much honoured equitable maxim, “ Equity will not 
 suffer a wrong to be without a remedy.” If the organ- 
 isation doesn’t go utterly to smash through internal 
 dissension, some day in some way, through the action 
 of some Dittemore, the courts will find a remedy for 
 this monstrous wrong of Mrs. Eddy’s creation. 
 
 
 
 *On February 5, 1925, and after this chapter had been. written, 
 death created a vacancy, and a few days later the surviving di- 
 rectors elected George Wendall Adams in the place of Adam H, 
 Dickey, deceased. 
 
III 
 
 SUPPRESSION 
 
 tation known to the law, suggestio falsi and 
 
 suppressio veri, suggestion or affirmation of 
 falsehood and suppression of the truth. Of both 
 varieties Mrs. Eddy and her official successors. were 
 and the latter continue to be past masters. Mrs. Eddy 
 never hesitated at a lie that would serve her purpose, 
 and the so-called Christian Science Committee on Pub- 
 lication zealously emulates her example. It will deny 
 the best established truth, if it is harmful to Mrs. 
 Eddy’s fame, and affirm the boldest of lies that will 
 add to her glory, in the belief of the faithful. As the 
 Christian Science Committee on Publication is omni- 
 present and exceedingly verbose, something should be 
 said of its constitution and methods. 
 
 The Board of Directors of the Christian Science 
 Church of Boston controls absolutely every avenue of 
 publicity. Through the Committee on Publication it 
 monopolises newspaper publicity and through the 
 Board of Lectureships it monopolises the platform. 
 No Christian Scientist, not a member of this Com- 
 mittee or Board, is permitted to write a letter to a 
 newspaper in defence of his faith or speak in public in 
 its favour. As no original utterance is allowed in any 
 Christian Science church, it will be understood how 
 completely the directors of the First Church of Christ, 
 Scientist, in Boston, control the channels through 
 
 205 
 
 4 erm are two kinds of fraudulent represen- 
 
206 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 which the public gets information regarding Mrs. Eddy 
 and her “ religion.” 
 
 The Committee on Publication of the Boston Church 
 was established by Mrs. Eddy by an article she caused 
 to be incorporated in the church by-laws and published 
 in the Church Manual. ‘The article provides that the 
 directors of the church shall appoint a committee on 
 publication of ‘ one loyal Christian Scientist, who lives 
 in Boston, and he shall be manager of the Christian 
 Science Committee on Publication throughout the 
 United States, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland.” 
 The appointment was subject to the approval of Mrs. 
 Eddy “ given in her own handwriting,” and the salary 
 was to be “ not less than four thousand dollars a year.” 
 Provision is made for a committee of one in each State 
 and Canada, selected by the three largest churches 
 therein, and these state committees appoint assistant 
 committees in every community within their respective 
 territory. In this manner the whole English-speaking 
 world, practically, is covered by agents of the Boston 
 church; for all of the committees are selected subject, 
 since the death of Mrs. Eddy, to the approval of the 
 directors thereof, and may be appointed by them. 
 
 All of these committees are required to correct “ im- 
 positions on the public in regard to Christian Science 
 and injustices done to Mrs. Eddy or members of this 
 church ” by the ” daily press, periodicals or circulated 
 literature of any sort,” and are responsible for the pub- 
 lication and circulation of such “ corrections in large 
 quantities.” If publication is not promptly made, the 
 Committee on Publication is required to ‘apply for 
 aid to the Committee on Business,” and the very 
 business-like Committee on Business promptly fur- 
 nishes advertising charges to insure publication. I 
 
SUPPRESSION 207 
 
 should have said that all committees are liberally paid. 
 
 In the exercise of the duties thus imposed upon them 
 to “correct imposition on the public ” and “ injustice 
 to Mrs. Eddy and other Christian Scientists,’ the pub- 
 lication committees invariably construe “ imposition ” 
 to be synonymous with harmful, and “injustice ” with 
 discrediting, and act accordingly. Harmful and dis- 
 crediting publications are unhesitatingly denied and 
 helpful publications are made without the slightest 
 regard for the truth. The individual acting as com- 
 mittee knows little or nothing about the fact; but will 
 deny or affirm, as interest dictates. The utter futility 
 of controversy with these agents of the directors of the 
 Boston church is now clearly seen. 
 
 But other and more sinister duties than those enum- 
 erated in the Manual are required of and performed by 
 this organisation. Suppression is one of them. They 
 must, if possible, suppress publication of harmful facts. 
 For instance: A woman of thirty-five years’ suffering 
 from Bright’s disease died in Cleveland, under Chris- 
 tian Science treatment, and the “healer” was prose- 
 cuted for practising medicine without a license. He 
 was convicted and fined one hundred dollars. The 
 testimony at the trial showed that, until five weeks 
 before her death, the woman had been under medical 
 treatment consisting mainly of diet and regulation of 
 bodily functions with a view to comfort and the pro- 
 longation of life. With the beginning of Christian 
 Science treatment, she was advised by her “‘ healer ” to 
 eat, and did eat, anything she liked, amongst them 
 things deadly to a person afflicted as she was; and the 
 regular functioning of the body was completely ig- 
 nored. The consequence was that, during the five 
 weeks of the “ healer’s ” treatment, which terminated 
 
208 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 in her death, her bowels were relieved but once, and 
 her condition, as a witness testified, was “‘ too horrible 
 to describe.” 
 
 As a result of the activities of the local Christian 
 Science Committee on Publication, no newspaper in 
 Cleveland published any report of the trial, the testi- 
 mony or the conviction. Precisely the same thing is. 
 done, or attempted, wherever and whenever possible. _ 
 
 Another undeclared duty of this committee is the 
 organisation of opposition to every effort made for the 
 enactment of laws for the prevention and spread of 
 contagious disease and the protection of the public 
 health. In this connection, card indexes are main- 
 tained of members of legislative bodies and editors of 
 newspapers. Printed cards are distributed to assist- 
 ants in every locality with blanks to be filled in showing 
 the name of the legislator or editor, “ his religion, his 
 attitude towards Christian Science and protective med- 
 ical legislation, his politics and the names of his in- 
 fluential friends.” All this is a close secret. 
 
 I can furnish much testimony to the effect that it is 
 the further duty of these salaried agents of the Boston 
 church to roundly slander, always anonymously, any- 
 one who dares stand up in public and tell the unvar- 
 nished truth about The Church of St. Bunco and its 
 founder. 
 
 Inasmuch as these advertising agents are wholly un- 
 influenced by considerations of truth or falsity and are 
 furnished ample funds to procure publication of their 
 material, their advantage over an honest critic is evi- 
 dent. They say anything they think will be helpful 
 and are insured the last word. 
 
 The Board of Lectureships is composed of men who 
 tour the country to glorify Mrs. Eddy and expound 
 
SUPPRESSION 209 
 
 her religio-medical ‘‘ discoveries.” None of them is 
 free to speak his mind. All their lectures are subjected 
 to censorship by the Boston oligarchy and not a word 
 may be changed after the lecture has been duly O. K.’d. 
 No questions may be asked the lecturer. Every Chris- 
 tian Science church must have a lecture at least once a 
 year and is required to pay the fee, which is left to the 
 discretion of the lecturer, and is at least a hundred 
 dollars. As there is no exposition whatever of Chris- 
 tian Science in the churches of the cult, these lectures 
 are the only instrumentality, outside of Mrs. Eddy’s 
 books, through which the public may receive authori- 
 tative information. 
 
 A word about the churches. They have no preach- 
 ers, no pastors. They have merely readers, First and 
 Second, male and female; and the lesson-sermon con- 
 sists of the reading, alternately, of ‘“ correlative ” pas- 
 sages from the two inspired volumes, Science and 
 Health and the Bible; but the correlation is wholly 
 imperceptible, that is to say, non-existent. The First 
 Reader (male) reads from the book of first importance, 
 Science and Health; the Second Reader (female) from 
 the book of secondary importance and authority. No 
 
 _ education is necessary for readers. Anyone who, by 
 ' practice, can master the English of Mrs. Eddy’s book, 
 is qualified to preside over the services of the most 
 
 rate 
 
 pretentious Christian Science church. Clothes of the 
 
 latest mode, a fair presence and a vacant mind alone 
 are requisite. Original discourses are prohibited. And 
 Christian Scientists do not pray. 
 
 “The divine ear is not an auditory nerve,” said Mrs. 
 Eddy, and ‘“‘ God is not influenced by man.” In fact 
 her idea was, as she said, that “ prayer to a personal 
 God is a hindrance.” So her followers do not pray. 
 
210 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Rather a queer religion—without prayer? It is true 
 that in Christian Science churches the Lord’s Prayer 
 is repeated; but Mrs. Eddy’s “ spiritual interpreta- 
 tion,” read with it, line by line, effectually eliminates 
 every quality of prayer; and Christian Scientists pro- 
 fess to pray only when they invoke the constitutional 
 guarantee of religious freedom as a defence in a prose- 
 cution for killing a child through neglect to furnish 
 medical attendance. 
 
 Here let me confine myself to that variety of Chris- 
 tian Science fraud known to the law as suppression of 
 the truth. The truth would kill Christian Science. As 
 the truth cannot be controverted, it must be suppressed. 
 
 An experience of upwards of twenty years’ investi- 
 gating and combating Christian Science makes it ne- 
 cessary that I should be a little personal. I think I 
 was the first publicly to present the facts of Mrs. 
 Eddy’s life quite plainly and to call a spade a spade. 
 The discovery, in the regular performance of profes- 
 sional duty, of her reckless mendacity, her heartless 
 cruelty, her utter selfishness, her colossal greed, was 
 astounding, and I deemed it my bounden duty to make 
 it public. In consequence, I became acquainted with 
 Christian Science methods of suppressing what they 
 _ cannot refute. 
 
 In 1901 I published what I called a Complete Expos- 
 - ure of Eddyism or Christian Science, in which I set 
 forth the plain truth regarding Mrs. Eddy in the plain- 
 est of terms, specifically accusing her, amongst frauds 
 of many kinds, of repeatedly attempting to cause dis- 
 ease and even death by professed mental powers. Inci- 
 dentally I called attention to the indictment of her 
 third husband for a conspiracy to commit murder 
 against a person, who had not yielded to mental meth- 
 
SUPPRESSION 211 
 
 ods, by means purely physical. I was animated by no 
 other purpose than the determination that the world 
 should know the truth and the whole truth about a 
 shallow and sordid charlatan; who owned a “ religion ” 
 that she gave freely to no one and sold as a coal-dealer 
 sells coal; who professed the discovery of a cure-all 
 healing system, that never healed anyone of any real 
 disease or relieved anyone of any real evil—but his 
 money. ‘Ten thousand of the pamphlet were sold. I, 
 personally, sent copies to Mrs. Eddy’s leading church 
 officials and her leading lawyers. It was also put into 
 Mrs. Eddy’s own hands. 
 
 If my charges thus publicly made and called to Mrs. 
 Eddy’s attention had not been true, if her life and repu- 
 tation had been such that she had dared submit them 
 to the searching scrutiny of a court of law, she most 
 surely would, and should, have called me to account; 
 but she knew the facts to be far worse than I had stated 
 them and sought only my suppression. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy, at the time, lived at Concord, New 
 Hampshire, and Hon. Henry Robinson, formerly 
 mayor, was postmaster of the city. Robinson was a 
 good lawyer and a good fellow, but an unfortunate 
 habit kept him poor. He maintained pleasant, even 
 friendly, relations with the famous woman at “‘ Pleas- 
 ant View,” and turned a penny now and then by some 
 small service or some extravagant public praise. It 
 afforded Mrs. Eddy not a little satisfaction to be able 
 to quote Hon. Henry Robinson, postmaster and former 
 mayor of her home city, in glorification of Concord’s 
 most celebrated personality, and Robinson’s pzans 
 were certainly worth his price. 
 
 When she reached the conclusion that the only way 
 to meet my accusations was, if possible, to suppress 
 
212 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 them, Mrs. Eddy summoned the postmaster to her 
 home and commissioned him to go to Washington and 
 endeavour to procure a ruling of the Post Office De- 
 partment excluding my pamphlet from the mails. It 
 happened that the then Postmaster-General was his 
 personal friend and Mr. Robinson painted the chances 
 of success in such glowing colours that expense money 
 and a substantial fee were promptly forthcoming; but 
 Mrs. Eddy assured him it would be necessary to pro- 
 vide him with a defence against the malicious animal. 
 magnetism of her enemies, which otherwise would 
 nullify his efforts; so a Christian Scientist was desig- 
 nated to accompany him to Washington and envelop 
 him the while in impenetrable mental armour. The 
 twain set out, but got only as far as Boston, when, on 
 the advice of Samuel J. Elder, then Mrs. Eddy’s most 
 trusted legal adviser, the plan was abandoned. Pea- 
 body, Mr. Elder urged, would get a lot of free advertis- 
 ing and the Postmaster-General would refuse to rule 
 against his pamphlet. Something better must be 
 thought of, and Mrs. Eddy’s fertile brain thought of it. 
 
 If the mails could not be closed to me, perhaps the 
 bookstores might; so Mrs. Eddy sat her down and 
 seized a pen and traced these pregnant words: “A 
 member of this church shall not patronise a publishing 
 house or bookstore that has for sale obnoxious litera- 
 ture.” Dispatched to her Boston agents, the Directors 
 of the “ Mother Church,” with instructions to adopt it 
 as a by-law and incorporate it in the Church Manual 
 for the guidance of the faithful, it was immediately 
 adopted and as Sec. 12, Article VIII of the Manual it 
 stands today. 
 
 When it is known that all persons recognised as 
 Christian Scientists must belong to the Boston church 
 
SUPPRESSION 213 
 
 and that Mrs. Eddy’s laws were made to be obeyed 
 upon penalty of expulsion and outer darkness, and 
 that they are obeyed, it will be seen what a powerful 
 instrument of suppression Sec. 12, Article VIII is. It 
 didn’t quite put me out of the bookstores; it took me 
 from the company of the innocuous on the counter and 
 numbered me with the “ obnoxious” in the drawer. 
 In any bookstore, in any part of the land, the display 
 of my pamphlet and, later, of my book has invariably 
 resulted in the exhibition to the astonished proprietor 
 of Mrs. Eddy’s command, accompanied by the threat 
 of a boycott by every one of the ‘“‘ two million ” Chris- 
 tian Scientists so long as the “ obnoxious literature ” 
 remains on sale. Thereupon, out of sight it goes. 
 
 Not only is this true of my anti-Christian Science 
 work, it is true of all writings critical of Christian 
 Science or its founder. The church authorities have 
 thus suppressed some of the most valuable sources of 
 reliable information regarding the Christian Science 
 attack upon the Christian religion and upon sane med- 
 ical practices. Called Christian and called science, it 
 is the negation of both. Professing absolute knowl- 
 edge, it denounces education and denies the evidence 
 of the senses. A creation of shreds and patches, it 
 could not live a single day in the light; but, through 
 suppression of the results of honest research, is made 
 to appear religion pure and undefiled. Some such sup- 
 pressions should be cited. 
 
 Before taking up the suppression of books published 
 through the ordinary channels let me first give pub- 
 licity to a wholesale suppression of unpublished ma- 
 terial in the highest degree discrediting to the so-called 
 Founder of Christian Science and her “ religion.” 
 Otherwise it will never be known. 
 
214 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 I was one of the lawyers for Mrs, Eddy’s sons in 
 their suit to have her adjudged incompetent to manage 
 her business affairs and protect her property interests. 
 The suit was never closed by judgment of the court for 
 either side; but the whole controversy was ultimately 
 settled by payment to the sons of about $300,000. A 
 condition of the settlement, imposed by lawyers for 
 Mrs. Eddy, was that all of the testimony taken in the 
 form of depositions and filed in court, be sealed against 
 public inspection, and all of Mrs. Eddy’s letters upon 
 which the sons relied as evidence of their contention, 
 should be turned over to them, and that Mrs. Eddy 
 herself should not be subjected to examination. 
 
 In contemplation of the examination of Mrs. Eddy, 
 I was asked by my senior associate, Hon. William E. 
 Chandler, to prepare material for his use; and I fur- 
 nished him data that would have taken a week or more 
 to cover and would have shown conclusively one of two 
 things—insanity or fraud. If Mrs. Eddy had stood by 
 the declarations of thirty years of her life, her insanity 
 would have been easily shown; and that could bé es- 
 caped only by an admission of lies and fraud. But the 
 sons were not seeking to discredit their mother. They 
 wanted only protection of personal interests and rights. 
 Mrs. Eddy was not examined, all the letters in the con- 
 trol of counsel for the sons were surrendered and all 
 the depositions were, on consent, taken from the court 
 files and turned over to Mrs. Eddy’s lawyers. So far 
 as originals were concerned, the suppression was com- 
 plete. A marvellous opportunity for a great service 
 passed and the “religion” and its Founder escaped 
 judicial exposure at a cost of $300,000. 
 
 Second: It was in 1905 that Miss Georgine Milmine 
 called at my office, in Boston, and said she was writing 
 
SUPPRESSION 215 
 
 a series of papers on famous American women and 
 wanted data regarding Mrs. Eddy, as she then deemed 
 her worthy of a place in such company. I furnished 
 Miss Milmine with information that put her in the way 
 of getting the desired material at first-hand, and, some 
 months later, she returned to the office a very much 
 astonished young woman. A mass of material had 
 been accumulated, but vastly different from what she 
 had expected to find, and the idea of honouring Mrs. 
 Eddy with a place amongst reputable and distinguished 
 women had been abandoned. 
 
 Miss Milmine arranged her material as a history of 
 Mrs. Eddy and submitted it to McClure’s Magazine. 
 Shortly thereafter, Mr. S. S$. McClure came to see me 
 with a view to confirming Miss Milmine’s findings and 
 extending the investigation until it should be exhaust- 
 ive. The job was too big for one person, he thought, 
 and, giving Miss Milmine full credit, he had put it into 
 the hands of his staff of experts, under the leadership 
 of Miss Cather. They were instructed to spare neither 
 time nor money, to cover the entire life of Mrs. Eddy, 
 to accept nothing on hearsay, and rely only upon first- 
 hand sources, and verify until there could be no pos- 
 sible doubt of absolute accuracy. In case of material 
 that was calculated to provoke a law-suit by Mrs. Eddy 
 for vindication, an abundance of supporting testimony 
 in writing under oath was to be taken and carefully 
 preserved. 
 
 For upwards of a year Miss Cather and her associ- 
 ates, George Kibby Turner, Burton Hendricks, Will 
 Irwin and others went over the whole period of Mrs. 
 Eddy’s life, visiting every place in which she had so- 
 journed even for a night and interviewing every person 
 known to have had the slightest contact with her. 
 
216 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 They procured innumerable photographs of persons 
 and places and fortified every discrediting incident by 
 the sworn statements of witnesses competent to testify 
 of their own knowledge in a court of law. They 
 studied Mrs. Eddy’s published writings, read many 
 hundreds of her unpublished letters and other writings 
 and the published and unpublished writings of those 
 from whom she had stolen her ideas. I say stolen, 
 instead of borrowed, advisedly. They left no period 
 of her life, no incident of her career, no phase of her 
 thought unexplored, and produced a work, wholly 
 without bias, that was exhaustive and, with one excep- 
 tion, accurate. That one mistake was due to reliance 
 upon Mrs. Eddy’s own written guarantee of the genu- 
 ineness of a photograph. 
 
 Wishing to have for the announcement, in the De- 
 cember, 1906, issue of the Magazine, of the forthcom- 
 ing series of articles, a photograph of Mrs. Eddy 
 authenticated by herself, they secured a picture sent 
 by Mrs. Eddy to a young lady, in response to a request 
 for her photograph, that had on its face Mrs. Eddy’s 
 autograph endorsement. It was not a picture of Mrs. 
 Eddy, but Mrs. Eddy had sent it as such to her cor- 
 respondent and had written her name beneath the 
 picture as a guarantee of its genuineness. McClure’s 
 mistake was in placing confidence in Mrs. Eddy’s as- 
 surance that the picture was of her. 
 
 With that exception, there was not an error in the 
 work; and it left the famed “ Founder and Discoverer 
 of Christian Science’ without a shred of character. 
 Having herself depicted herself as being hand-in-hand 
 with the Saviour, like Him, a haloed divinity; the Mil- 
 mine life exhibited her as an ignorant, vulgar, men- 
 dacious, incredibly avaricious impostor. 
 
SUPPRESSION 217 
 
 After the publication of this material in serial form 
 in McClure’s Magazine, in 1907-1908, it was revised, 
 new material was added and a book publishing house 
 
 brought it out as a book entitled The Life of Mary 
 
 Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science. 
 The book had a large sale, got into the public libraries, 
 was widely quoted and relied upon as authoritative. 
 Then something happened. The History disappeared 
 from the bookstores; the publishers refused to fill 
 orders and finally announced that it was out of print. 
 A friend of mine, anxious to keep the work before the 
 public, at my suggestion wrote to the publishers asking 
 if the firm would sell him the plates. He was informed 
 that the plates had been destroyed, ‘‘ melted down,” 
 the book would no longer be published. The publishers 
 having no further use for the copyright, I then sug- 
 gested to my friend that he ask if they would sell it to 
 him? They replied that the copyright was not for sale. 
 
 Isn’t that a singular business situation? A business 
 firm, not doing business for its health or for pleasure, 
 will not sell at any price a property that will not other- 
 wise yield it a dollar! If Mrs. Eddy’s rule prohibiting 
 Christian Scientists to patronise a publisher who han- 
 dles “ obnoxious literature,” and the Publication Com- 
 mittee’s threat of a boycott did not operate here, what 
 did? The world has lost an invaluable work: the truth 
 has been suppressed. 
 
 I should record the efforts of the faithful to counter- 
 act the Milmine exposures at the time of their serial 
 publication. The announcement produced consterna- 
 tion in Christian-Sciencedom, and ways and means of 
 meeting the facts were considered. A handy instru- 
 ment presented itself in the person of Mrs. Sibyl 
 Wilbur O’Brien. 
 
 eh 
 
218 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Mrs. S. W. O’Brien, a reporter of The Boston Her- 
 ald, and not a Christian Scientist, called upon me one 
 morning, some months before the first publication of 
 the McClure story and said she wanted an interview 
 for her paper with Mrs. Eddy and asked how it might 
 be obtained. So many disappointed newspaper people 
 had told me of the difficulties in the way of such an 
 interview, that I informed Mrs. O’Brien she wouldn’t 
 get inside the Eddy house, but would be told, outside 
 of the front door, that Mrs. Eddy never gave inter- 
 views except by appointment. As a matter of fact 
 such appointments were never made, for the reason 
 that Mrs. Eddy’s feeble condition during the latter 
 years of her life and her painfully emaciated aspect 
 were rigourously guarded secrets. 
 
 Mrs. O’Brien’s experience was precisely as predicted. 
 Mr. Frye, the coachman-secretary, met her on the front 
 porch and, after carefully closing the door behind him, 
 announced that only by previous appointment could an 
 interview be had with Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. O’Brien was 
 disappointed, but not discouraged; and there shortly 
 appeared an “interview” in the Herald. It did not 
 contain a word of conversation with Mrs. Eddy, but 
 overflowed with fulsome adulation. She was allowed 
 only to gaze upon the sacred personality as it flitted 
 past the door of the room in which the reporter sat. 
 Mrs. O’Brien had failed in her purpose to get an inter- 
 view, but her pretended interview commended her 
 strongly to official Christian-Sciencedom. 
 
 After the publication of the McClure History had 
 begun, Mrs. O’Brien’s keen sense of the profitable dis- 
 cerned an opportunity to benefit her bank account and 
 she offered her services in the preparation of an anti- 
 dote, an authorised history to be published contempo- 
 
SUPPRESSION 219 
 
 raneously, and that, regardless of facts, should sound 
 Mrs. Eddy’s praises to the very skies. The bargain 
 was struck and the pages of a nondescript periodical 
 called Human Life were found available. The pub- 
 lisher of Human Life was a patent medicine proprietor 
 of Boston, one W. F. Smith. Mrs. O’Brien got busy. 
 She wrote. Heavens, how she wrote! Bold and ex- 
 plicit denials of éstablished truth; even bolder and 
 equally explicit affirmations of what was well known to 
 be false; the most barefaced evasions, the most inept 
 shufflings, the most maudlin attempts at apotheosis 
 crowded from Mrs. O’Brien’s prancing pen; and the © 
 faithful were delighted. Mrs. O’Brien was generously 
 requited and her rhapsody became, and is today, the 
 official, authorised life of Mrs. Eddy. It now bears 
 the imprint of the Christian Science Publishing So- 
 ciety; but the O’Brien part of its author’s name has 
 been suppressed. Its implications were disturbing. 
 Catholics are not welcomed to Mrs. Eddy’s church. 
 
 Was it not beautifully appropriate that the author- 
 ised life of the proprietor of a copyrighted “ religion ” 
 denying the efficacy of drugs, written by an unbeliever, 
 should have found its first public expression under the 
 benevolent auspices of the proprietor of a patented 
 medicine? 
 
 This so-called authorised life of Mrs. Eddy has been 
 placed, free of cost, in practically all of the public 
 libraries of the country and, the McClure History. hav- 
 ing been largely removed by Christian Science zealots, 
 is today thé only really available “ history.” of the 
 ‘Christian Science movement; and it isa fiction from 
 beginning to end. When one contemplates the results 
 ‘of the’ Christian Science methods of spreading the 
 “truth,” how appalling is seen to be the efficacy of lies! 
 
220 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Third: Not only have Christian Science suppressive 
 measures operated against works openly hostile or 
 purely neutral, but harmful as the truth is harmful to 
 falsehood, they have actually invaded the region of 
 pure scholarship and given notice that no one shall any- 
 where be permitted to state the facts of Mrs. Eddy’s 
 career or give utterance to unfavourable comments 
 upon her life and teachings. Encyclopedias have been 
 induced to suppress informative articles and substitute 
 colourless dope that gave nothing whatever to the in- 
 vestigator. The most recent performance of this 
 character has received much publicity and wide con- 
 demnation; but its real inwardness remains to be 
 disclosed. It is, as lawyers say, on all fours with 
 the McClure’s Magazine history as published and 
 suppressed. 
 
 A firm of New York publishers recently published 
 an elaborate History of American Literature, which, as 
 the publishers say, ‘ furnishes a history of the litera- 
 ture written in English in the United States from the 
 first settlement to the end of the Nineteenth Century,” 
 and add that “‘ the editors have secured the services of 
 contributors, American and Canadian, who im all cases 
 write with special knowledge of the topic assigned. 
 The work is exact and authoritative.” This announce- 
 ment is printed in large type on the paper cover of each 
 volume and is the publishers’ guarantee. 
 
 Wanting a chapter on books produced by “ sects bred 
 and nourished by the heterogeneity of the American 
 people and their freedom from any dominant creed,” 
 the editors selected The Book of Mormon and Science 
 and Health as typical of such writings; and to make 
 sure that the subjects should receive ‘exact and 
 authoritative”’ treatment by one “having special 
 
SUPPRESSION 221 
 
 knowledge of the topics,” they asked Professor Wood- 
 bridge Riley to write a chapter on these “ American 
 Bibles.” 
 
 Woodbridge Riley is the author of a number of 
 books and articles on Psychology and Philosophy. 
 His Ph.D. thesis at Yale was entitled The Founder 
 of Mormonism; a Psychological Study of Joseph 
 Smith, Jr. This book was publicly denounced 
 by the President of the Mormon Church in the Salt 
 Lake City Tabernacle. Dr. Riley’s chief interest has 
 lain in American Philosophy. As Johnston Research 
 Scholar in Johns Hopkins University, he published a 
 volume of some six hundred pages on American Philos- 
 ophy; The Early Schools. This was followed by a 
 smaller volume carrying the speculative movements up 
 to date, entitled American Thought from Puritanism 
 to Pragmatism. While in Paris, in 1920, Dr. Riley 
 delivered a series of lectures on Representative Ameri- 
 cans at the Sorbonne. These appeared in French form 
 under the title Le Génie Américain, with an introduc- 
 tion by the celebrated French philosopher Henri 
 Bergson. 
 
 In connection with his studies in American Philos- 
 ophy, Dr. Riley has investigated various normal and 
 abnormal speculative movements. In this connection 
 he has delivered addresses on different phases of 
 Mental Healing in America for the Johns Hopkins 
 Medical School, the International Psychological Con- 
 gress at Geneva (1910), and also the annual ad- 
 dress at Atlantic City before the American Medico- 
 Psychological Association. This address appeared in 
 the American Journal of Insanity. 
 
 If the editors of The Cambridge History of Ameri- 
 can Literature wanted a chapter on the Mormon and 
 
222 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 the Christian Science Bibles that should be primarily 
 designed to please Mormons and Christian Scientists, 
 they made a mistake in the selection of Dr. Riley. If 
 they wanted treatment that should be honest and 
 accurate in substance and fascinating in style, their 
 choice was the best possible. 
 
 In due time Dr. Riley’s contribution, entitled 
 ‘“‘ American Bibles,” and dealing with The Book of 
 
 ' § Mormon and Science and Health, appeared in the 
 
 _ History. Fifteen hundred copies were sold; then, as 
 _ in the case of the McClure work, something happened. 
 ' The publishers received a “ shock.” 
 
 Dr. Riley is possessed of a sense of humour and 
 everyone who has seriously studied Mrs. Eddy and her 
 ‘“‘ science ” has found them, in some aspects, the very 
 funniest things that ever put on the garb of solemnity. 
 Mark Twain remarked that he did not ‘“‘ see how any- 
 one contemplating Mrs. Eddy’s career could deny to 
 the Divine Being the possession of a sense of humour ”; 
 and Dr. Riley doubtless found it hard to keep a 
 straight face throughout. He knew Mrs. Eddy had 
 been married at least three times and that she had 
 written most voluminously on things religious; so with 
 scientific exactness he spoke of her as a “ thrice- 
 married female Trismegistus,” and playfully permitted 
 himself to say that “ instead of a hall of fame contain- 
 ing Newton, Copernicus, Columbus and Mary Baker 
 Eddy, one would be tempted to substitute an obsolete 
 set of waxworks—the Shaker seeress, Mother Ann Lee, 
 the Portland mesmerist, Quimby, and transcendental- 
 ism’s tedious archangel, Bronson Alcott.” 
 
 Those who believe, or pretend they believe, Mrs. 
 Eddy to have equalled Jesus Christ in purity and 
 power, were, or felt it necessary to pretend to appear, 
 
SUPPRESSION 223 
 
 outraged by Dr. Riley’s characterisation of their sacred 
 personality as a thrice-married female Trismegistus. 
 Christian Science culture couldn’t understand it, so it 
 was deemed positively blasphemous. Let us examine 
 the famous phrase a moment to see what possible 
 ground for offence there was. 
 
 It is well known that Mrs. Eddy had been married 
 three times. Surely there was nothing offensive in the 
 statement of that fact. If it is entirely creditable to 
 marry once, as is commonly believed, is it not thrice 
 creditable to do so entirely creditable a thing three 
 several times? The poet has said that “ willingly to 
 march to marriage requires the courage of a lion.” If 
 the poet was well advised, does it not require the cour- 
 age of three lions willingly to march to marriage three 
 times? And is it not high praise of Mrs. Eddy to imply 
 the possession of so dauntless a soul? But perhaps it 
 was “ Trismegistus” that stuck in the Christian 
 Science crop. Trismegistus, it appears, was a real, or 
 imaginary, writer on religious themes of the second or 
 third century. Can it be said to be a reflection upon 
 Mrs. Eddy to liken her to a personality whose fame has 
 endured for seventeen hundred years? But Christian 
 Science susceptibilities are keen, and Dr. Riley was 
 doomed to extinction. 
 
 The New York Christian Science Committee on 
 Publication, in the person of one Gilmore, donned its 
 most pious demeanour and solemnly presented itself at 
 the office of the publishers. Did the firm know that 
 it had sanctioned the perpetration of a sacrilege? Was 
 it aware that through its instrumentality the religious 
 feelings of ‘two millions” of people had been out- 
 raged? Did it realise that no one of those ‘ two mil- 
 lion” readers of books would look at any publication 
 
224 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 bearing its imprint so long as it published “ obnoxious 
 literature” of the Woodbridge Riley variety? In 
 tones admitting of no discussion its expurgation was 
 demanded. 
 
 With the demand of the Christian Science Committee 
 on Publication the publishers hastened to comply. 
 ‘“‘ American Bibles,” by Woodbridge Riley, Ph.D., was 
 forthwith torn from the volume; copies that had been 
 sold were recalled; a colourless article was substituted, 
 and, to justify their affront to scholarship, the pub- 
 lishers publicly denounced Dr. Riley’s performance as 
 nothing less than outrageous, shocking beyond any- 
 thing in their previous experience. 
 
 Fourth: To set at rest forever the controversy re- 
 garding Mrs. Eddy’s indebtedness to Phineas P. 
 Quimby for Christian Science as a healing system, Mr. 
 Horatio W. Dresser prevailed upon the representative 
 of Quimby’s son, into whose hands the father’s manu- 
 scripts and Mrs. Eddy’s letters to Quimby had come, 
 to permit their publication in full, and they were ac- 
 cordingly published in 1921, in a volume of nearly five 
 hundred pages, entitled, The Quimby Manuscripts, 
 Showing the Discovery of Spiritual Healing and the 
 Origin of Christian Science. 
 
 Language could not have been formulated that would 
 have expressed more explicitly and unreservedly her 
 complete obligation to Quimby for the healing system 
 called Christian Science than did Mrs. Eddy’s grateful 
 and affectionate, self-humiliating, Quimby-glorifying 
 letters. A round score of them appeared; but they 
 were promptly suppressed. 
 
 It so happens that private letters may not be pub- 
 lished without the consent of the writer, and by direc- 
 tion of Mrs, Eddy’s representative publication of this 
 
SUPPRESSION 225 
 
 evidence of the fraudulent character of her claim to 
 “ discovery ” of Christian Science was suppressed. 
 
 It may be that truth crushed to earth will rise again; 
 but it cannot be denied that there is an extraordinary 
 vitality in lies wrapped in the mantle of righteousness 
 that can invoke the law for truth’s suppression. 
 
IV 
 SWINDLING 
 
 “ That shameless old swindler, Mother Eddy.” 
 —Mark Twaln. 
 
 “T am as pure as the angels”’—Mary BAKER Eppy. 
 
 of her long life, a grossly ignorant person. 
 
 She professed to have read the Old Testament 
 in the original Hebrew and the New Testament in the 
 original Greek; but that was pure fiction. She pro- 
 fessed to have been kept from school because, as she 
 said, of her father’s belief that her brain was too large 
 for her body; while, as a matter of fact, at fifteen years 
 of age she was in classes with children of nine at the 
 little one-room village school. She professed to have 
 graduated from “ Sanborn’s Academy,” when there was 
 no such ‘‘ Academy,” and the elementary private school 
 conducted for a while by Sanborn never “ graduated ” 
 anyone. 
 
 There came a time in Mrs. Eddy’s amazing career 
 when contact with people of some culture in her fol- 
 lowing made it impossible for her to conceal the pro- 
 fundity of her own ignorance, and she was ready with 
 an explanation that completely satisfied the most per- 
 plexed.” ‘‘ After my discovery of Christian Science,” 
 she said, “ most of the knowledge I had gleaned from 
 school-books vanished like a dream. Learning was so 
 
 226 
 
 Mi: BAKER EDDY was, during the whole 
 
SWINDLING | 227 
 
 illumined that grammar was eclipsed.” However it 
 may have been with learning, there can be no doubt of 
 grammar’s total eclipse. The brain too large for her 
 body, however colossal its proportions, could not be 
 expected to contain the scraps of knowledge picked up 
 at the primary school together with the huge volume 
 of data comprehended within the scope of her great 
 “* discovery.” 
 
 Upon her death, at eighty-nine years of age, Mrs. 
 Eddy’s estate was appraised at three million dollars, 
 her “ library ” being valued at five. All the thought of 
 all the ages, history, science, philosophy and the rest, 
 was a closed book to the professed ‘“‘ Founder and 
 Discoverer of Christian Science”; but one thing she 
 knew and did not permit to escape, dreamlike or other- 
 wise. She plumbed to the depths the credulity of the 
 human mind, or rather, found it to go beyond plum- 
 met’s sound. No one ever tested it more thoroughly, 
 and she found no absurdity beyond its scope. And 
 here Mrs. Eddy and Mark Twain were in agreement, 
 that “ The absurdity the human race can’t swallow 
 hasn’t been invented yet.” She harvested three million 
 dollars from the gullibility of her followers, and mar- 
 velled only at her moderation. It might just as well 
 have been thirty million. 
 
 Mark Twain characterised Mrs. Eddy in the terms 
 quoted at the head of this chapter because of her claim 
 that she had written the first and final editions of the 
 book, Science and Heaith. He had studied the two 
 volumes, and within them found incontrovertible proof 
 that the same hand could not have written the crude 
 original and its polished successors. Admitting her / 
 authorship of the book of 1875, he knew that none of 
 the editions after 1885 came from her uncultured pen. 
 
228 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 It is well known, of course, that in 1885 Mrs. Eddy 
 employed James Henry Wiggin, a gentleman of broad 
 culture, deep learning and high literary skill, not to 
 revise, but to rewrite her book, and that for a period of 
 four years all of her writings had the benefit of his 
 competent hand. One edition of the great book con- 
 tained a whole chapter, entitled Wayside Hints, every 
 word of it Wiggin’s composition, and it became a part 
 of the inspired volume. Mrs. Eddy wrote Wiggin that 
 her friends, believing it to be hers, ‘‘ thought it a gem.” 
 
 But now I am going to show Mrs. Eddy to have been 
 a “swindler ” of quite another kind, to have deliber- 
 ately defrauded her friends, the confiding followers, 
 who looked to her as the bearer of a divine message 
 and regarded her as co-equal with Christ, out of their 
 base, material property in secret violation of the law 
 of the land. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy’s career is full of mmconsistencies; but 
 that is common to frail humanity. ‘“ Do I contradict 
 myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large, I 
 contain multitudes,” said the great poet of American 
 democracy. Mrs. Eddy contradicted, not herself, but 
 God. That is to say, professing to “ voice God,” to 
 speak by divine inspiration, the Infallible One was 
 made to utter and to act contradictions. ‘The All-Wise 
 is without variableness or shadow of turning. Than 
 Mrs. Eddy, the weather-cock was not more changeable. 
 Voicing God is risky business for the forgetful garru- 
 lous. Such an one should voice his message and ever 
 after be dumb. Mrs. Eddy’s memory was not of the 
 best and restraint was unknown to her tongue. Hence 
 the divine vacillations. 
 
 Speaking of her book, Mrs. Eddy said: “I should 
 blush to speak of Science and Health as I have, were it 
 
SWINDLING 229 
 
 of human origin and I, apart from God, its author.” 
 With such unwonted clearness Mrs. Eddy claimed di- 
 vine origin for her book, and in the “ divine ” original 
 she said: 
 
 “We have no need of creeds and church organisation 
 to sustain or explain a demonstrable platform.” . 
 
 “The mistake the disciples of Jesus made, to found 
 religious organisations and church rites, if indeed they did 
 this, was one the Master did not make.” ... 
 
 “No time was lost by our Master in organising rites 
 
 and ceremonies, or on proselyting for certain forms of 
 belief.” 
 
 Thus, in 1875, when her book was first published, 
 Mrs. Eddy communicated to a somewhat inattentive 
 world the views of God. The mistake of the disciples 
 was not to be imitated. For Christian Science, there 
 was to be no creed, no rites or ceremonies, no church 
 organisation, no proselyting. But, within three years, 
 she applied to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for 
 a church charter; constituted herself president of the 
 church; in due time formulated a creed to which all 
 must subscribe; established elaborate rites and cere- 
 monies to which all must conform and developed a 
 system of proselyting that no church ever surpassed in 
 thoroughness and efficiency. Forgotten or brushed 
 aside were God’s judgments; imitated was the avowed 
 mistake of the disciples; disregarded was the approved 
 example of Christ. 
 
 If there were contradiction and inconsistency in the 
 performance, there was also method. The one control- 
 ling purpose of Mrs. Eddy’s life for many years was to 
 put money in her purse. After she did that, her ab- 
 
230 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 sorbing passion was to have absolute power. While 
 Christian Science was still unknown of men, she 
 glimpsed the pecuniary possibilities of a large church 
 following obedient to her slightest wish. A three-ring 
 circus may be a money-maker, but it involves a large 
 outlay of capital and great risk: while a church organ- 
 isation, autocratically governed, financed by the faith- 
 ful and in which the highest duty is obedience, may be 
 made as profitable as a circus. Mrs. Eddy’s church 
 became her “ colossal, gigantic, mammoth ” three-ring 
 show, yielding a revenue to its owner calculated to turn 
 Barnum’s green with envy. 
 
 Comparison of the Christian Science Church to a 
 three-ring circus is more apt than would, at first blush, 
 appear: for it makes a triple appeal, to the soul, to the 
 body, to the purse. For money, it will abolish the ills 
 of the spirit. For money, it will abolish the ills that 
 afflict the body. For money, it will fatten the leanest 
 purse. I have elsewhere shown how Mrs. Eddy made 
 her church fill her purse. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy’s first feeble attempt at church organisa- 
 tion was made, as I have said, in 1879. Gathering to- 
 gether her little band of followers she launched the 
 Church of Christ, Scientist, at Lynn, a suburb of Bos- 
 ton; but its voyage was destined to be stormy and its 
 fate, the rocks of discord and dissension. In 1881 the 
 most influential members withdrew because, as they 
 said in a signed statement, of Mrs. Eddy’s “ departure 
 from the straight and narrow road (which alone leads 
 to growth of Christ-like virtues), made manifest by 
 frequent ebullitions of temper, love of money, and the 
 appearance of hypocrisy.” Intimate personal inter- 
 course with her, in 1881, led eight sincere and self- 
 respecting Christian Scientists, for the reasons stated, 
 
SWINDLING 231 
 
 over their signatures, to repudiate the leadership of 
 and withdraw from fellowship with the President of 
 their church organisation. From early girlhood, when 
 her “frequent ebullitions of temper,” tantrums, he 
 called them, reduced her hard-headed old father, Mark 
 Baker, to a condition of abject servility, to her extreme 
 old-age, ungovernable temper was a marked character- 
 istic of Mrs. Eddy’s behaviour. “ Ebullition ” nicely 
 describes her boiling, hysterical wrath when even 
 mildly opposed. ‘“‘ Love of money’? Perhaps the 
 strongest count in any indictment that can be framed 
 against her is the consuming love of money; and 
 nothing could have been more audacious than the 
 methods employed to compel the members of her 
 church to furnish it. 
 
 If I know anything about hypocrisy, it consists in 
 falsifying professions by acts; and the acts of Mrs. 
 Eddy’s whole life can be cited to give the lie to her 
 professions of disinterestedness and eagerness to serve 
 mankind. 
 
 “Upon this rock will I build my church.” So, 
 Peter; so, Mrs. Eddy. The land upon which Mrs. 
 Eddy’s church in Boston stands is not rock, but mud 
 intermixed with filling of any kind available; and over 
 it the water of the Charles River at one time ebbed and 
 flowed. But that is not the point. What I am going 
 to show is that the land was acquired by Mrs. Eddy, 
 without their knowledge, through a deliberate fraud 
 perpetrated upon Christian Scientists and at a cost to 
 them of just about six thousand dollars actual money. 
 The facts of this transaction have never before been 
 disclosed; but I have known them for many years and 
 stand ready to establish them by the strictest of 
 legal proof. 
 
232 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 In the summer of 1886, a small group of Mrs. 
 Eddy’s devotees bought, of Mr. Nathan Matthews, a 
 plot of land on Falmouth Street, Boston, taking title 
 in the name of one of their number as trustee, upon 
 which to build a church. The price was about eleven 
 thousand dollars. The purchasers paid down two thou- 
 sand dollars and gave Mr. Matthews a mortgage for 
 the balance, $8,763.50. The zealous believers then 
 proceeded to raise the money to pay off the mortgage; 
 and, by solicitations, fairs, concerts and like customary 
 devices, succeeded in reducing the mortgage to a little 
 less than five thousand dollars. It might have been 
 still further reduced by the money secured, had not the 
 Christian Science custodian of the fund absconded with 
 a considerable sum. It thus appears, as stated above, 
 that Mrs. Eddy’s Boston followers had put approxi- 
 mately six thousand dollars in cash into the property 
 upon which they were to construct their church in her 
 honour and for the worship of God according to her 
 “religion.” It was resolved not to build until the title 
 had been cleared of the mortgage debt. The treasurer’s 
 defalcation was a discouragement and increased the 
 difficulty of raising money. The contributors were not 
 pleased that their contributions had been stolen, and 
 there was a marked disinclination to take any more 
 chances. Thus the project was delayed and dragged 
 along for three years. 
 
 Her friends’ trouble was Mrs. Eddy’s opportunity. 
 To befriend them? To contribute, as she well might 
 from her then large resources, the balance due on the 
 mortgage, relieve the land from the encumbrance and 
 fill the hearts of her friends with grateful rejoicing? 
 By no means. The distress of her friends was Mrs. 
 Eddy’s opportunity to take advantage of them, to 
 
SWINDLING 233 
 
 brush them from her path, to gobble up their six thou- 
 sand dollars and dispossess them of the land for her 
 own purposes. That is what she actually did, and she 
 accomplished it through chicanery and fraud, with the 
 help of a disreputable lawyer, afterwards disbarred. I 
 purpose to state the facts of this odious transaction so 
 plainly that the simplest mind can understand them, 
 and I will stand by them anywhere and any time they 
 may be called in question. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy had seen the financial possibilities of a 
 church in Boston, the opportunities for using its mem- 
 bership for pecuniary gain. She had sized it up as “a 
 sure thing”; but she wanted ‘“‘ to get in on the ground 
 floor.” ‘“‘ Mrs. Eddy was nobody’s fool,” as Mr. Wig- 
 gin, who probably knew her better than anyone else, 
 said, and her business sense was marvellously keen 
 and accurate. 
 
 The “ rock ” upon which Mrs. Eddy built her church 
 was, to borrow Mark Twain’s careful and precise desig- 
 nation, a swindle. Let us see what Mrs. Eddy, herself, 
 says about this performance. 
 
 In her book, Pulpit and Press, she says: ‘‘ Owing to 
 a heavy loss [the treasurer’s defalcation] they [her 
 friends] were unable to pay the mortgage, therefore I 
 paid it and through trustees gave back the land to 
 the church.” 
 
 This is an utterly false statement, so proven by the 
 public records in the Registry of Deeds in the City of 
 Boston. She did not pay the mortgage; she bought it, 
 and it remained an encumbrance upon the land pre- 
 cisely as before. Only the ownership of the mortgage 
 changed. Mrs. Eddy stepped into the shoes of Mr. 
 Matthews. She acquired his claim and his rights 
 against her friends, The most unfriendly, the most 
 
234 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 unkind thing the owner of a mortgage can do is to 
 foreclose it. This unkind, this unfriendly thing, Mrs. 
 Eddy did with her mortgage upon the property of her 
 friends. She foreclosed it. A legal foreclosure was 
 clearly within Mrs. Eddy’s legal right; but the fore- 
 closure was not legal. It was fraudulent. 
 
 Neither did Mrs. Eddy “ give back the land to the 
 church.” The church, for which the land had been 
 bought and the six thousand dollars paid, ceased to 
 exist and the six thousand dollars was lost to the sub- 
 scribers—every penny of it. The treasurer stole a 
 considerable sum; but their “‘ revered Leader ” swin- 
 dled them out of several times as much. When Mrs. 
 Eddy finally got a record, but illegal, title to the land, 
 she conveyed it to trustees for the establishment of a 
 new church in which there was no authoritative voice 
 but hers, and which she used to put money and more 
 money and still more money into her purse, until it 
 fattened to the bursting-point. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy acquired the land, three years after her 
 friends had bought it for eleven thousand dollars, and 
 it had in the meantime increased in value. It is prob- 
 ably true that at the time she conveyed it to trustees its 
 value was not less than twenty thousand. She says so, 
 and I am happy to be able to record my belief that her 
 statement Is true. It cost her only five thousand dol- 
 lars and had cost her friends eleven thousand, of which 
 they had paid six; but she never gave publicity to the 
 small amount of her contribution or the fact that the 
 involuntary cash contribution of her friends was larger 
 by a thousand dollars than her own. The poor, deluded 
 creatures never dared call Mrs. Eddy to account, and 
 meekly permitted themselves to be despoiled. 
 
 For the information of those, happily unacquainted 
 
SWINDLING 235 
 
 with mortgage foreclosures, it should be explained that 
 a mortgage is a claim, a lien, upon land given by the 
 owner for borrowed money or a part of the purchase 
 price; and for any violation of the conditions of the 
 mortgage, failure to pay interest or principal when due, 
 for instance, the lender and owner of the mortgage, 
 may foreclose, may sell the land at public auction, and 
 from the proceeds of the sale pay himself all due upon 
 the mortgage, turning over the balance, if any, to the 
 unfortunate owner of the land. The purchaser at the 
 foreclosure sale becomes the owner of the land and 
 may dispossess the former owner at his pleasure. In- 
 stead of paying the mortgage, as she says, Mrs. Eddy 
 bought and pretended to foreclose it. 
 ' Mrs. Eddy wanted to obtain title to the land in ques- 
 tion for a quarter of its value. She says it was valued 
 at twenty thousand dollars and she wanted to get it for 
 five thousand. She wanted to cheat her friends out of 
 ». the six thousand they had, with so much difficulty, 
 raised and paid on the price of the land, and in one 
 Baxter E. Perry, then a lawyer in Boston, she found a 
 capable and conscienceless instrument. Perry, as I 
 have stated, was subsequently disbarred, turned out of 
 his profession, by the Supreme Judicial Court of Mas- 
 \sachusetts for other professional irregularities. As the 
 success of her scheme, without the loss of her Boston 
 following, depended upon secrecy, Mrs. Eddy’s name 
 did not appear in any of the foreclosure proceedings; 
 but her money financed them. She furnished the 
 slightly less than five thousand dollars necessary to 
 buy the mortgage of Mr. Matthews; but the transfer, 
 the assignment of the mortgage, was not made to her, 
 but to Perry’s brother; and it was the brother, acting 
 as a “‘ dummy ” for Mrs. Eddy, who went through the 
 
236 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 forms, some of the forms, of foreclosure. On the face 
 of it, and so far as they knew, the foreclosure was 
 being made by a perfect stranger to the owners of the 
 land. They never, then, dreamed that the hostile act 
 was being secretly directed and financed by their 
 honoured leader and revered ‘‘ Mother.” Like Brer 
 Rabbit, she “lay low.” Indeed, she even expressed 
 sympathy with her dear friends in their extremity. The 
 precise facts of this heartless jugglery are as follows: 
 Managing the proceeding for Mrs. Eddy, Perry, 
 having the assignment of the mortgage to his brother, 
 published the usual notice of foreclosure. The prop- 
 erty was advertised for sale on the premises at a date 
 named in the notice. At that time and at that place 
 quite a number of Christian Scientists, large subscrib- 
 ers to the fund, together with strangers attracted by 
 the advertisement, assembled to make sure that the 
 land was not sacrificed for a fraction of its value. No 
 one representing the assignee of the mortgage, Mrs. 
 Eddy’s dummy, and no auctioneer appeared. The land 
 was not offered for sale; no one had an opportunity to 
 bid; there was no sale. Later, on the same day, Perry 
 stated that the sale had been made at his office and that 
 his brother had bought the land for the balance due 
 upon the mortgage. It should be remembered that the 
 legal title to the land when it was bought of Mr. 
 Matthews was taken in the name of one of the Chris- 
 tian Scientists, who, as treasurer of the fund, it was be- 
 lieved could be trusted, and that he had absconded with 
 the accumulations in his hands and could not be lo- 
 cated. As his would have been the initiative of any 
 proceeding to set aside the foreclosure and he had sub- 
 stantial reasons for keeping out of sight, Mrs. Eddy’s 
 poor dupes deemed themselves remediless and gave up 
 
 SE ——— 
 
SWINDLING 237 
 
 in despair. For precisely the same reason, Mrs. Eddy 
 deemed herself secure. So it proved. Perry’s title was 
 not legal and could at any time have been voided by the 
 courts; and Perry could convey no better title than he 
 had himself. It was not until three years later that 
 Mrs. Eddy herself acquired a record title. By her di- 
 rection the title passed through several others before 
 she found it expedient to take title herself; and her title 
 was no better than Perry’s, which she knew to be fraud- 
 ulent: When she conveyed the land to trustees, who 
 subsequently built upon it her Boston church, the so- 
 called “‘ Mother Church,” she conveyed no better than 
 the fraudulent title she held. And thus it was that Mrs. 
 Eddy’s friends lost their land and their money, and that 
 she gobbled them up—land and money. I should add 
 that at a date later than the foreclosure proceedings, 
 The Massachusetts Title Insurance Company was 
 asked to insure the title and, for reasons best known 
 to itself, refused. 
 
 “‘ Confirmation strong as holy writ ” of the real char- 
 acter of this transaction is found in Mrs. Eddy’s own 
 subsequent explanation. 
 
 In course of time she was made aware that certain 
 of her oldest followers were daring to question the 
 regularity of the pretended foreclosure, and some had 
 even been so venturesome as to ask her about it. Here 
 and there an irreverent husband, lamenting his wife’s 
 Christian Science obsession, declared the whole thing 
 to have been a trick and a fraud. Hoping to allay sus- 
 picion, in an unguarded moment Mrs. Eddy permitted 
 herself an attempted justification, and in The Christian 
 Science Journal said: 
 
 “TI had this desirable site transferred in a circuitous, 
 
238 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 novel way the wisdom of which a few persons have since 
 scrupled. I knew that to God’s gift, foundation and 
 superstructure, no one could hold a wholly material title. 
 The land and the church standing upon it must be con- 
 veyed through a type representing the true nature of the 
 gift; a type morally and spiritually inalienable, but ma- 
 terially questionable—even after the manner that all spir- 
 itual good comes to Christian Scientists, to the end of 
 taxing their faith in God and their adherence to the su- 
 periority of the claims of spirit over matter or merely 
 legal titles. . . . Our title to God’s acres here will be safe 
 and sound ‘ when we can read our title clear’ to heavenly 
 mansions,” 
 
 Mrs. Eddy’s early followers, with surprisingly accu- 
 rate estimate of her character, withdrew from her first 
 church in 1881, because, as they publicly charged, of 
 her ‘‘ frequent ebullitions of temper,’ her “love of 
 money,” and “the appearance of hypocrisy ”; and 
 these are the outstanding characteristics of the 
 woman’s whole life. 
 
 Could there be a more beautiful, truly beautiful, 
 specimen of hypocrisy than the above passage from the 
 “inspired” pen of the “ Discoverer and Founder of 
 Christian Science’? Without disclosing her participa- 
 tion, she had ousted her devoted followers from land 
 upon which they had paid six thousand dollars. Not 
 one cent of their money did any one of them recover. 
 To her own five thousand dollars, she added their six 
 and took it and the land from them. Openly she com- 
 forted them with words of sympathy and compassion; 
 secretly she picked their pockets. And when, after 
 several years, she dared take title in her own name and 
 thus disclose her ownership, she threw out a screen of 
 pious words and spiritual assurances. ‘“ God’s gift,” 
 
SWINDLING 239 
 
 “ God’s acres,” “ faith in God,” “ claims of the spirit,” 
 “ spiritual good ” and ‘“‘ heavenly mansions ” were held 
 before the eyes of the faithful to conceal the fact that 
 they had been betrayed and plundered. 
 
 But she let the cat out of the bag. For once dis- 
 cretion failed her. She admitted that some had 
 ‘“‘ scrupled ” her method, thought it dishonest; that the 
 performance was ‘‘ materially questionable,” that is to 
 say, abominable, and that her title was not “ legal,” in 
 other words, was fraudulent. 
 
 Foul deeds will rise, 
 Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that this was an isolated in- 
 stance of Mrs. Eddy’s lack of scruple in attaining her 
 ends. It is but one of many similarly conscienceless 
 performances and by no means the worst. . She was 
 dishonest through and through. Her life was one 
 brazen, heartless lie. Her own interest was her first 
 consideration, always; and her inner self differed from 
 her outward pretensions as night differs from day. , 
 
 And nearly a hundred thousand sincere people hold 
 this shameless woman, with Christ, in their hearts! 
 
 Verily, the credulity of the so-called Dark Ages was 
 not more dense than the gullibility of what it pleases 
 us to call an enlightened time! 
 
V 
 
 LIES 
 
 
 
 “T think Mr. will im candour concede that she | 
 [Mrs. Eddy] ts, by a large percentage, the most erratic, 
 contradictory and untrustworthy witness that has occu- | 
 pied the stand since the days of the lamented Ananias.”” | 
 
 —Mark TwaIin. 
 
 bridge Riley, came under the ban and got his 
 
 scholarly essay on Christian Science sup- 
 pressed, because he irreverently spoke of its “ foun- 
 der ” as a “‘ thrice-married female Trismegistus.” My 
 sympathy was with worthy Trismegistus. Dr. Riley, 
 it seemed to me, was a little hard on the garrulous old 
 fellow; but the Eddyite objection passes my compre- 
 hension. They were as angry as if Trismegistus had 
 been the world’s most famous hypnotist. Casting 
 about for an appellation that would not cruelly reflect 
 upon the long-since dead, I think I have stumbled 
 upon the very thing. 
 
 Many years ago there flourished a Russian man of 
 letters, who became famous as the most prodigious liar 
 that, up to that time, the world had ever known; and 
 he was proud of his reputation. Striving to outdo all 
 rivals, he became a very master in the art of falsifica- 
 tion; and, until the advent of Christian Science, re- 
 mained peerless. To have a later and still greater 
 master of his art called by his name, he would, could 
 
 240 
 
 Mi good friend and collaborator, Dr. Wood- 
 
LIES 241 
 
 he know of it, deem the greatest of compliments. I 
 have been under the ban now these many years, and 
 not, as yet, suppressed. So I am emboldened to sug- 
 gest to Dr. Riley that in place of the reflection upon 
 Trismegistus, he should have used this cognomen (fair 
 and just to both experts in fabrication )—the “ thrice- 
 married female Munchausen.” Let me weave a gar- 
 land of her obvious falsehoods for the brow of this 
 veracious female successor of the imaginative Baron. 
 She shall have her crown. 
 
 No. 1: ‘‘ Although it is duly estimated by business 
 characters and learned scholars that I lead and am 
 obeyed by three hundred thousand people at this date 
 [1898]. The most distinguished newspapers ask me to 
 write on the most important subjects. Lords and 
 ladies, earls, princes, marquises and marchionesses 
 from abroad write to me in the most complimentary 
 manner. Our senators and members of Congress call 
 on me for counsel.” 
 
 Munchausen never did anything better than that. 
 Accounting for her total ignorance, as I have shown, 
 she said, “‘ After my discovery of Christian Science, 
 most of the knowledge I had gleaned from books van- 
 ished like a dream. Learning was so illumined, that 
 grammar was eclipsed.” Knowledge had vanished and 
 grammar was in eclipse, but as learning, without knowl- 
 edge, was illumined, no wonder British royalty and 
 nobility, not to speak of American statesmen, sought 
 her favour and advice. 
 
 No. 2: “In 1883 a million people acknowledge and 
 attest the blessings of this mental system of treating 
 disease. 
 
 In 1910, the United States government gave the total 
 as sixty-five thousand. 
 
242 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 No. 3: “‘ While Mrs. Eddy was in a suburban town 
 of Boston, she brought out one apple-blossom on an 
 apple-tree in January, when the ground was covered 
 with snow; and in Lynn demonstrated in the floral line 
 some such small things.” ‘This is written by her type- 
 writer and signed with her autograph. 
 
 To argue the untruthfulness of the apple-tree episode 
 would insult the intelligence of a moron. 
 
 No. 4: “It was not an uncommon occurrence in my 
 own church for the sick to be healed by my sermons. 
 Many pale cripples went into the church leaning on 
 crutches, who went out carrying them on their 
 shoulders.” 
 
 Since no “ pale cripple,’”’ nor anyone else, ever testi- 
 fied to the event, only a Christian Scientist will be able 
 to believe it. Mrs. Eddy had good reason to know 
 their credulity to be limitless. It sometimes seems as 
 if she sought to measure their capacity for swallowing 
 absurdities. 
 
 No. 5: “‘ P. P. Quimby stands upon the plain of wis- 
 dom with his truth. As he speaks as never man before 
 spake and heals as never men healed since Christ, is he 
 not identified with the truth? ” This before Quimby’s 
 death. After it, she said: ‘‘ Quimby’s treatment was 
 never considered anything more than mesmerism.” 
 
 Reconciled these statements cannot be. As express- 
 ing her own belief, both statements may be false: both 
 cannot be true. Before Quimby’s death, she thought 
 he healed as Christ healed. After he had died and she 
 had appropriated his system, she sought to discredit 
 her teacher by calling him a mesmerist. 
 
 No. 6: Before Quimby’s death: “ I am up and about 
 today by the help of the Lord (Quimby). I am to all 
 who see me a living wonder, a living monument to your 
 
LIES 243 
 
 power.” After his death: “I was not healed until 
 after the death of Quimby.” 
 
 Quimby did, and he didn’t. She was healed by him, 
 and she wasn’t! 
 
 No. 7: Before Quimby’s death: ‘‘ Quimby healed the 
 sick as Jesus did.” After he had died: “‘ Quimby was 
 a magnetic doctor.” 
 
 If we can think Mrs. Eddy thought that Jesus was 
 a magnetic doctor, we can believe both of these state- 
 ments expressed Mrs. Eddy’s belief; otherwise, not. 
 
 No. 8: Before Quimby’s death: ‘ At present I am 
 too much in error to elucidate the truth and can touch 
 only the key-note, for Quimby’s master-hand to awake 
 the harmony” After he had died: “I saw Quimby 
 about twenty years ago and aimed to help him.” 
 
 Before his death, Quimby’s was the master-hand. 
 Long after she had made his teaching her ‘“‘ discovery,” 
 she recalled helping the ‘‘ master-hand”’ sound forth 
 its harmonies. 
 
 No. 9: Before Quimby’s death: “ Jesus taught as 
 never man does; who, then, is wise but you, Quimby? ” 
 After he had died: ‘‘ Quimby was illiterate. He was a 
 very unlearned man.” 
 
 Believe both of those things, she could not. 
 
 No. 10: Just after Quimby’s death: ‘“ Rest shall re- 
 ward him who has made us whole, seeking, though 
 tremblers, where his footsteps trod.” When she had 
 made his work her own: “I used to take his scribblings 
 and fix them over for him and give him my thoughts 
 and language, which, as I understand it, were far in 
 advance of his own.” 
 
 Before the thought of stealing Quimby’s system had 
 entered her head, Mrs. Eddy thought of herself as 
 tremblingly following his footsteps; and, when taxed 
 
244 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 with the appropriation, she recalled that, for in ad- 
 vance of Quimby, she had sought to polish up his 
 “ scribblings.” 
 
 Believe that she believed herself following and in 
 advance of Quimby at one and the same time you 
 cannot. 
 
 No. 11: “ The land, whereon stands the First Church 
 of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, was first purchased by 
 the church and Society. Owing to a heavy loss, they 
 were unable to pay the mortgage, therefore I paid it 
 and through trustees gave back the land to the church.” 
 
 The falsity of this I have shown: that the records of 
 the Registry of Deeds in Boston conclusively prove. 
 She didn’t pay the mortgage; she didn’t give back the 
 land to the church. She swindled her trustful friends 
 out of their property, and then pretended to have been 
 their benefactor. 
 
 No. 12: We do not too harshly judge a woman who 
 prevaricates, within reasonable limits, regarding her 
 age; but, for a woman who proclaimed truth to be God, 
 a departure from the truth by sixteen years is “ tew 
 mutch.” Being fifty-six, she gave her age for the 
 official record of her third marriage as forty years. 
 
 No. 13: “ These words of St. Matthew have special 
 application to Christian Scientists, namely: ‘ It is not 
 good to marry.’ ” 
 
 After three marriages, Mrs. Eddy could perhaps 
 testify that, judging from experience, it is not good to 
 marry. She inveighed against marriage almost as 
 much as if, instead of having been three times married, 
 she had been three times jilted. But she distorts Holy 
 Writ to bolster her prejudice. St. Matthew did not, of 
 course, say what she puts into his mouth; but he does 
 quote Jesus as saying, ‘‘ For this cause shall a man 
 
LIES 245 
 
 leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto 
 his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.” There has 
 never been a marriage in a Christian Science church. 
 Mrs. Eddy would not permit it. 
 
 No. 14: “It is a fact, well understood, that I begged 
 the students who first gave me the endearing appella- 
 tion ‘ mother’ not to name me thus. But without my 
 consent the name spread like wildfire. I still think the 
 name is not applicable to me.”—Mrs, Eddy, in New 
 York Sun, Jan. 17, 1903. 
 
 This falsehood must have nonplussed the faithful, 
 hundreds of whom had received letters from Mrs. Eddy 
 signed, ‘‘ Mother.” This is especially true of the 
 officers of her church. Not only that, but all the faith- 
 ful knew their Manual of by-laws, every one of which 
 was of ‘‘ Mother’s”’ authorship. Section 1 of Article 
 XXII, as it was when Mrs. Eddy’s letter was printed 
 in The Sun, is as follows: . 
 
 “The Title of Mother. In the year 1895 loyal Chris- 
 tian Scientists had given to the author of their textbook, 
 the Founder and Discoverer of Christian Science, the in- 
 dividual endearing name of Mother. Therefore, if a stu- 
 dent of Christian Science shall apply this title either to 
 herself or to others, except as the term for kinship accord- 
 ing to the flesh, it shall be regarded by the church as an 
 indication of disrespect for their Pastor-Emeritus and un- 
 fitness to be a member of the Mother Church.” 
 
 She begged her students not to call her mother, and 
 still thought it was not applicable to her; took it to 
 herself and used it constantly in her correspondence 
 and threatened with excommunication any woman of 
 her church who dared similarly apply it to herself or 
 another. ; 
 
246 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 No. 15: When the Earl of Dunmore (who subse- 
 quently died of the disease of which Christian Science 
 had “ cured”? him) was dangling in Mrs. Eddy’s train, 
 she faked a genealogy showing her descent in a straight 
 line from a scion of the British aristocracy, and had it 
 published in the Ladies’ Home Journal for November, 
 1903. The article was preceded by the following an- 
 nouncement: “The writing of this article and the 
 making of the illustrations on the opposite page were 
 done with the special permission of Mrs. Eddy, and 
 both pages, having been seen by her in proof, received 
 her full approval.” 
 
 In the course of the article the following paragraph 
 appeared: 
 
 “Among Mrs, Eddy’s ancestors was Sir John MacNeil, 
 a Scotch knight, prominent in British politics and Am- 
 bassador to Persia. Her great-grandfather was the Right 
 Hon. Sir John MacNeil, of Edinburgh, Scotland. Mrs. 
 Eddy is the only survivor of her father’s family, which 
 bore the coat-of-arms of the ancient MacNeils. The 
 motto is Vincere aut mors (conquer or die). Surrounding 
 the shield and enclosed in a heavy wreath is the motto of 
 the Order of the Bath, Tria juncta in uno (Three joined 
 in one). To these family traditions Mrs. Eddy has but 
 one heir by her first husband, Col. George Washington 
 Glover, of Charleston, S. C.” 
 
 The paragraph above quoted renders the significance 
 of the following letter perfectly clear: 
 
 “To the Editor of Truth: [London] 
 “¢ Sire 
 
 “T shall be glad if you think this untruth contained in 
 the enclosed article, suitable for correction. 
 
LIES 247 
 
 “T am the only married grandchild of the late Right 
 Hon. Sir John MacNeil, G. C. B., of Edinburgh, who 
 was prominent in British politics and Ambassador to Per- 
 sia, and Mrs. Eddy is certainly not my daughter. 
 
 “My mother, Margaret Ferooza MacNeil, was the only 
 child of his that reached maturity, though he was three 
 times married. She married my father, Duncan Stewart, 
 R. N., now captain, retired, and died in 1871. Of her six 
 children, one died unmarried three years ago; five survive, 
 of whom four are unmarried. 
 
 “Tam the wife of Commander N. G. Macalister, who 
 is at present inspection officer of coastguard for Aberdeen 
 Division. 
 
 “ Faithfully, 
 “ FLORENCE MACALISTER.” 
 
 If Mrs. Eddy’s tale of her ancestry were true, she 
 must have been born before her mother. But it would 
 lay no great demand on her followers to believe that! 
 
 No. 16: “I then withdrew [1866] from society 
 about three years to ponder my mission, to search the 
 Scriptures, to find the science of mind that should take 
 the things of God and show them to the creature and 
 reveal the great curative principle, God.” 
 
 By the oath of Horace T. Wentworth, Catherine 
 Isabel Clapp, Lucy Holmes, and Charles O. Went- 
 worth, and by Mrs. Eddy’s writing in their possession, 
 photographs of which I have, Mrs. Eddy is shown, 
 during the three years she mentions, to have lived with 
 Mrs. Sally Wentworth at Stoughton, Mass., and to 
 have taught a system of mental healing she said she 
 had learned from Quimby. In all her writings, she 
 never mentioned Stoughton nor the Wentworths. In 
 my Religio-Medical Masquerade, I have paralleled 
 passages from the Wentworth manuscripts of Mrs. 
 
248 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Eddy’s Extracts from the Writings of P. P. Quimby, 
 with passages from her book showing identity of 
 thought, and every curative feature of Christian 
 Science. As late as 1870, she was teaching Christian 
 Science and openly attributing it to Quimby. There- 
 after she discovered that she discovered it herself 
 in 1866. 
 
 No. 17: “ There are one hundred and sixty applications 
 lying on the desk before me for the primary class in the 
 Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and I cannot do my 
 best work for a class that contains over one quarter of 
 that number. If all these should be taught, another large 
 number would be waiting for the same class, and the other 
 three courses delayed. ‘The work is more than one person 
 can accomplish, but the demand is for my exclusive teach- 
 ing, and dissatisfaction with any other, which leaves me no 
 alternative but to give up the whole thing. 
 
 “Deeply regretting the disappointment this must occa- 
 sion, and with grateful acknowledgments to the public, I 
 now close my college. 
 
 ” Mary BAKER Eppy.” 
 
 The foregoing is from The Christian Science Journal, 
 September, 1889. 
 
 “‘ She closed her college, October 29, 1889, in the height 
 of its prosperity, with a deep-lying conviction that the 
 next two years of her life should be given to the prepara- 
 tion of the revision, in 1891, of Science and Health.” 
 
 The last foregoing is from Preface to Science and 
 Health, 1896. 
 
 “My conscientious scruples about diplomas, the recent 
 
LIES 249 
 
 experience of the church fresh in my thoughts, and the 
 growing conviction that everyone should build on his own 
 foundation, subject to the one builder and maker, God,— 
 all these considerations moved me to close my flourishing 
 school,” 
 
 The last foregoing is from page fifty-eight, Mrs. 
 Eddy’s Retrospection and Introspection, 1899. 
 
 Her incautious retrospect lets the cat out of the bag. 
 She closed her ‘ College’ because threatened with 
 prosecution by the District Attorney in Boston. 
 
 One cannot be an habitual prevaricator, and “ get 
 away with it,” if one is very forgetful. 
 
 No. 18: “I challenge the world to disprove what I 
 hereby declare: After my discovery of Christian Science, 
 I healed consumption in its last stages, that the M.D.’s, by 
 verdict of the stethoscope and the schools, declared incur- 
 able, the lungs being mostly consumed. I healed malig- 
 nant tubercular diphtheria and carious bones that could be 
 dented by the finger, saving them when the surgeon’s 
 instruments were lying on the table ready for their ampu- 
 tation. I have healed, at one visit, a cancer that had so 
 eaten the flesh of the neck as to expose the jugular vein, 
 so that it stood out like a cord.” 
 
 This falsehood appeared in The New York Sun of 
 December 16, 1898. In the humble opinion of the 
 writer, no viler, wickeder, crueller lie was ever con- 
 ceived or uttered. The disproof for which she calls, I 
 give. She knew when she sent her challenge to The 
 Sun, that ordinary disproof of her alleged cures was 
 dependent upon more information than she imparted. 
 If she had said: “On January first, 1890, at No. 8 
 Broad Street, in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, I 
 
250 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 healed at one visit a cancer that had so eaten into the 
 neck of John Smith, who lived there, that the jugular 
 vein stood out like a cord”—if she had given those 
 details, it would be possible to meet them with the ordi- 
 nary form of disproof. She didn’t give them because 
 she couldn’t; and she couldn’t because she had never 
 healed anyone of anything, never relieved anyone of 
 anything—but dollars and sense. 
 
 Dr. Charles A. L. Reed, of Cincinnati, was and is 
 [1924] one of the most distinguished physicians in the 
 country. The esteem in which he is held by his pro- 
 fessional brethren is attested by his selection for the 
 highest professional honour they could confer, the 
 Presidency of the American Medical Association. Re- 
 sponding to Mrs. Eddy’s challenge, making clear its 
 bogus character, Dr. Reed, in The Sun of January 1, 
 1899, said: 
 
 “Mrs. Eddy comes into the arena with her character- 
 istic bravado and challenges the world to prove a negative. 
 She blissfully closes her eyes to the fact that she herself 
 has not proved the position. On the contrary, her self- 
 heralded wonders rest entirely upon her own unsupported 
 declaration. . . . She should remember that even people 
 who are not the victims of vagaries such as hers,—and 
 whose every-day utterances do not toy with the eternal 
 verities as do hers,—even such people are expected to 
 bear the burden of proof when they seek to tax credulity. 
 I therefore demand the proof of this high priestess; and 
 that the issues may be clearly drawn, I shall take up a 
 few of her declarations seriatium: 
 
 “Mrs. Eddy says, ‘I healed consumption in its last 
 stages, .. . the lungs being mostly consumed.’ 
 
 “I denounce this declaration as false, and challenge its 
 substantition by competent and disinterested testimony. 
 
LIES. 251 
 
 “Mrs. Eddy says, ‘I healed carious bones that could be 
 dented with the fingers.’ 
 
 “I denounce this declaration as false, and challenge its 
 substantiation by competent and disinterested testimony. 
 
 “Mrs. Eddy says, ‘I have healed, at one visit, a cancer 
 that had so eaten the flesh of the neck as to expose the 
 jugular vein so that it stood out like a cord.’ 
 
 “TI denounce this declaration as false and challenge its 
 substantiation by competent and disinterested testimony. 
 
 “Tf Mrs. Eddy has done all these wonders, she can do 
 them again. If she is devoted to humanity in the altruistic 
 fashion that she proclaims, she will not hesitate to demon- 
 strate her alleged ‘science’ under circumstances that will . 
 give it the widest possible influence. To this end, if she 
 will come to Cincinnati, I will place at her disposal cases 
 of consumption, cases of cancer, and cases of carious 
 bones. She shall have them under observation for such 
 time as she shall determine and she shall dictate all details 
 of their management. They shall, however, be under the 
 daily observation of a competent and disinterested person 
 of my choice, but who shall have no voice in their manage- 
 ment and who shall visit them only in her presence. 
 
 “If she, by her Christian Science, shall cure any one of 
 them, I shall proclaim her omnipotence from the house- 
 tops; and, if she shall cure all, or even half, of them, I 
 shall cheerfully crawl upon my hands and knees that I 
 may but touch the hem of her walking-dress. If it may be 
 more convenient to Mrs. Eddy and she is not disposed to 
 honor us with a visit, I shall take pleasure in endeavour- 
 ing through my friends to make a similar arrangement at 
 Bellevue or some other New York hospital. If Mrs. Eddy 
 will accept this challenge and cure one or more of the 
 cases, she will thereby demonstrate that she may be some- 
 thing more than either a conscienceless speculator on 
 human credulity or an unfortunate victim of egotistic 
 alienation. 
 
 “ Cincinnati, Dec. 27, 1898. “ CHartes A. L. REED.” 
 
252 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 ‘When the king of death shall come to earth, all 
 knees will touch the ground.” If Christian Science 
 were not completely fraudulent, if Mrs. Eddy had 
 been sincere, she would have given some proof of 
 the truth of her miraculous “ cures,” when asked by 
 so eminent a man as Dr. Reed, would she not? If 
 she had made the healings claimed, she could have 
 repeated them; and to have repeated them, under 
 the circumstances offered by Dr. Reed, would have 
 been to have given evidence that she was the con- 
 queror of death and have brought all the world, with 
 Dr. Reed, to its knees at her feet. It was a wonder- 
 ful opportunity for the professed miracle worker to 
 prove her power. It afforded Mrs. Eddy an occa- 
 sion for satisfying mankind, once and forever, that 
 she was not a “conscienceless speculator on human 
 credulity,” nor ‘an unfortunate victim of egoistic 
 alienation’; but a human being with the attributes 
 of God. 
 
 Did Mrs. Eddy furnish any testimony of her alleged 
 cures? Did she even give the name of any of the 
 people she said she had healed? Did she show any dis- 
 - position to avail herself of Dr. Reed’s offer to make a 
 demonstration that would convince the world? She 
 did none of these things. Silence possessed her, and 
 silence was confession. Boldly challenging the world 
 to disprove her unsupported and unbelievable asser- 
 tions, the challenger hastily abandoned the field when 
 challenged to produce proof that her statements were 
 not wholly false. If a man makes assertions that 
 rest upon his unsupported word and, when asked for 
 proof, gives none, we believe him to be a liar, and don’t 
 hesitate to call him a liar. Every word of Mrs. Eddy’s 
 challenge was pure fiction, evolved from her inner con- 
 
LIES 253 
 
 sciousness solely for the purpose of adding to the 
 number of her dupes. 
 
 If Mrs. Eddy ever loved anyone but Mrs. Eddy, her 
 sister-in-law, Mary Ann Baker, was that one. I have 
 read letters from the one to the other that show a real 
 affection of Mrs. Eddy for Mrs. Baker. For years 
 before her death, Mrs. Baker suffered frightfully from 
 cancer of the breast. Did Mrs. Eddy put forth the 
 slightest effort to mitigate that suffering, to save the 
 life of one she loved? She recommended a Boston 
 healer; nothing more, and Mary Ann Baker died of 
 cancer. Isn’t that proof, mountains high, that Mrs. 
 Eddy lied when she said she had healed a cancer at 
 - one visit? If she could have healed her sister, and she 
 didn’t, as the Registry of Deaths in Boston shows, 
 what had Mrs. Eddy, harder than adamant, for a 
 heart? | 
 
 No. 19: “In 1866, I discovered the Science of Meta- 
 physical Healing, and named it Christian Science. God 
 had been graciously fitting me, during many years, for the 
 reception of a final revelation of the absolute principle of 
 Scientific Mind-healing.”—Science and Health, 1896, 
 
 page 1. 
 
 Throughout Mrs. Eddy’s book, a hundred times she 
 affirms that mind is spirit and that mind healing is spir- 
 itual healing. One quotation will suffice: “‘ If we would 
 heal by the Spirit, we must not hide the talent of spirit- 
 ual healing under the napkin of its form.” Page 366. 
 
 On April 21, 1864, two years before her claimed dis- 
 covery, she said: “‘ Posted at the public marts in this 
 city is this notice: 
 
 “Mrs. M. M. Patterson will lecture at the Town 
 
254 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Hall one week from next Wednesday on P. P. Quimby’s 
 Spiritual Science Healing Disease.” 
 
 Mrs. Eddy was at the time the wife of Patterson, her 
 second husband, and called herself Mary M. Patterson. 
 The statement quoted is in her handwriting and is con- 
 clusive evidence that her claim to discovering the 
 “Science ” of spiritual or metaphysical or mind healing 
 is wholly false. 
 
 No. 20: “I should blush to write of Sctence and Health 
 with Key to the Scriptures as I have, were it of human 
 origin and I, apart from God, its author.” 
 
 If the nineteen falsehoods established do not prove 
 the twentieth a conscious and deliberate fabrication, 
 then no statement, however great a tax upon credulity, 
 can be discredited by showing its author to be “ the 
 most erratic, contradictory and untrustworthy witness 
 that has occupied the stand since the days of the 
 lamented Ananias.”’ 
 
 The pretension upon which her “ religion ” is based 
 is as false as her pretended claim to discovery of 
 mental or spiritual healing. 
 
 Baron Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Munchausen was 
 an accomplished liar; but he did not pose as the apostle 
 of Truth, nor profess to be an “‘ impersonation of the 
 immaculate idea,” nor pretend to equality with Jesus. 
 “I am as pure as the angels,” was not his declaration. 
 Munchausen did not attempt to enhance the selling 
 price of his literary wares by claiming God’s author- 
 ship and that their perusal was life-saving. He did not 
 toy with the eternal verities, life, death, immortality, 
 God, with reckless disregard of human well-being. 
 
 Mary Baker Eddy did all these things—and more; 
 
LIES 255 
 
 so far as the writer can ascertain, Ananias, Mun- 
 chausen and all the other world-famed and historic 
 liars were bungling amateurs when compared with the 
 one supreme artist, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer 
 and Founder of Christian Science. She, alone, attained 
 perfection, stands unapproached, unapproachable— 
 alone! 
 
VI 
 DEATH 
 
 * The dream of death is to be mastered by mind.” 
 
 “ Man is immortal and the body cannot die.’ 
 
 “Any material evidence of death 1s false.” 
 
 “ Man ss incapable of sin, sickness and death.” 
 
 “ The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do 
 with life.’ —Mary Baker Eppy. 
 
 sie AN is incapable of death”; but Mary Baker 
 M Eddy is dead! ‘“ Death is a dream”; but 
 Mary Baker Eddy, in her concrete grave, 
 
 has dreamed the dream of death these many years! 
 “The lungs have nothing to do with life”; but the 
 lungs of Mary Baker Eddy, closed to the admission of 
 a single breath, strangled her as literally as would a 
 hand that closed the windpipe at her throat! To be 
 sure, the evidence of her death is sense evidence, which 
 she declared to be always erroneous; but it is the only 
 kind of evidence we have that she ever lived. “ In- 
 capable of sickness, incapable of death,” her lungs 
 having nothing to do with life—pneumonia killed her! 
 
 If facts can negative assertions, the fact of Mrs. 
 Eddy’s death falsifies Christian Science from beginning 
 _ to end. 
 
 Septimus J. Hanna is dead. During the years of 
 Mrs. Eddy’s greatest activity, Hanna, next after her, 
 was the leading Christian Scientist. As pastor of the 
 Boston church and editor of The Christian Science 
 
 256 
 
DEATH 257 
 
 / Journal, Hanna consistently proclaimed the unreality 
 ' of death and life’s independence of the bodily organs. 
 _ In his open professions, lungs and bronchial tubes had 
 _ nothing to do with life; but Hanna is dead. Broncho- 
 
 . pneumonia, inflammation of the bronchial tubes and 
 
 lungs, killed him. The complete healing of a bronchial 
 - affection by Christian Science, he said, made him Mrs. 
 __Eddy’s disciple. Then he died of it. As a “ religion,” 
 Hanna made Christian Science pay him well; as a 
 curative agent, it failed him in his utmost need. 
 
 Archibald McLellan is dead. McLellan succeeded 
 Hanna in Mrs. Eddy’s favour. She made him editor 
 of her periodicals, chairman of her Board of Directors 
 and trustee of her estate. He made her teaching his 
 gospel and expounded it and lauded her without ceas- 
 ing. In many ways and on many occasions he affirmed 
 its therapeutic infallibility. In The Christian Science 
 Journal for July, 1916, Editor McLellan said: ‘‘ When 
 one whose life has been shadowed by intense physical 
 suffering is led to investigate Christian Science, often- 
 times through study of the text-book alone, peace of 
 mind is assured; and, when this has been gained, there 
 is not the slightest doubt that complete physical healing 
 will follow.” 
 
 McLellan had not only studied the text-book, he 
 knew it almost by heart; and he had the very excep- 
 tional advantage of daily intercourse with its author. 
 If one’s countenance is an index to one’s mind, McLel- 
 lan had attained the peace of mind of which he speaks; 
 for his countenance, even upon the streets, bore an 
 expression of ineffable calm. But at the precise mo- 
 ment when McLellan wrote that there was not the 
 slightest doubt complete physical healing would follow 
 such peace of mind, McLellan was doomed. The 
 
258 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 blood and the brain have nothing to do with life; but 
 a drop or two of blood escaped from McLellan’s arter- 
 ies to his brain, and the thing we call life ended. The 
 arteries had hardened, the blood passages through 
 them contracted and the consequent increase of blood- 
 pressure burst an artery in the brain, and McLellan 
 died. Arterio-sclerosis—hardening of the arteries— 
 killed him, in the prime of life and when he was most 
 useful to his ‘‘ Leader.” 
 
 Alfred Farlow is dead. Through his chairmanship 
 of the Christian Science Committee on Publication, and 
 his official pronouncement in the press all over the 
 country, Farlow was, perhaps, more in the public eye 
 for some years, than Mrs. Eddy herself. His job was 
 to deny everything harmful and affirm everything he 
 deemed helpful to Mrs. Eddy and her teachings. 
 Again and again and again he declared no extremity of 
 physical disorder beyond the power of Christian 
 Science treatment. He was a Christian Science 
 “healer” as well as teacher. Taught by Mrs. Eddy 
 herself that heart, blood, lungs and brain had nothing 
 to do with life, he insisted it was so; but Farlow’s 
 heart stopped beating and Farlow died. According to 
 the official record, valvular disease of the heart killed 
 Farlow. Like McLellan he, too, died in his prime, 
 fifty-eight years of age. On a public occasion, I heard 
 Farlow say that he knew of leprosy having been cured 
 by Christian Science treatment; but Alfred Farlow’s 
 heart-disease it did not, could not, cure. 
 
 Edward_E. Kimball is dead. Virgil A. Strickler is 
 dead. Joseph Armstrong is dead. William B. Johnson 
 is dead. Each, in life, stood at Mrs. Eddy’s right hand. 
 They “healed” and taught. Receiving the gospel 
 straight from the fountain-head, they professed to 
 
DEATH 259 
 
 believe and they taught that “ the dream of death is to 
 be mastered by mind,” that ‘the body cannot die,” 
 that “ blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to 
 do with life.” And they are dead. A diseased con- 
 dition of one or another of the bodily organs killed 
 them. 
 
 Let us get a little closer to Mrs. Eddy. There was 
 death amongst the members of her household; but, 
 when warned in time, she did not permit it to occur on 
 her premises. She sent the dying to die where the fact 
 would not so much discredit her pretensions. 
 
 Mrs. Parmalee J. Leonard lived with Mrs. Eddy for 
 a number of years. She had been a healer of renown, 
 until Mrs. Eddy summoned her to Concord. Little 
 short of miracles were the “ cures” she effected. She 
 “knew ” that disease does not exist and that such 
 “ knowledge ” cured sickness of every description. 
 She “‘ knew ” she did not have diabetes; but she could 
 not persuade herself that she was not always hungry 
 and always thirsty and constantly losing what a ma- 
 terial world calls “ flesh.” Right under Mrs. Eddy’s 
 eyes, in close daily contact with the “ founder” of a 
 cure-all mental healing system, diabetes took its course 
 *with Mrs. Leonard. Mrs. Eddy ignored the constantly 
 -aggravated symptoms; put forth no effort to save her 
 - devoted friend and servant. Claiming the power to 
 heal and to have healed consumption when “ the lungs 
 were mostly consumed,” and, “ at one visit, a cancer 
 that had so eaten into the neck as to expose the jugular 
 vein so that it stood out like a cord,” she put forth no 
 power, mental or other, to cure her adorer. When Mrs. 
 Eddy’s discerning eye judged Mrs. Leonard’s death to 
 be imminent, she sent the woman away, to die else- 
 where; and diabetes killed Mrs. Leonard, 
 
260 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 But, on another of his visits, the Reaper got ahead 
 of the ‘“‘ Revelator,” and neglected to give the necessary 
 warning such as would enable Mrs. Eddy to bundle the 
 dying person off to die somewhere else than under her 
 roof. Her coachman, having in his ignorance suffered 
 from a belief of heart disease, changed his belief, de- 
 nied himself capable of heart disease, cured himself 
 by ‘knowing that sickness does not exist.” The 
 “cure” converted him to Christian Science. Instantly 
 “cured ” of his disease, he, as instantly, died of it in 
 Mrs. Eddy’s house at Concord, New Hampshire. 
 
 The most, socially, prominent person that ever 
 avowed himself a Christian Scientist was the Earl of 
 Dunmore. He was Mrs. Eddy’s dearest conquest, and 
 was exploited unceasingly. He visited her at Concord 
 and correspondence between them edified the faithful 
 from the columns of the Christian Science periodicals. 
 The earl had nothing to gain by becoming a Christian 
 Scientist and was undoubtedly sincere. He believed he 
 had been healed by its treatment, honestly believed 
 that he owed his life to Mrs. Eddy’s teachings; but he 
 was mistaken. In The Cosmopolitan Magazine for 
 March, 1907, the Earl of Dunmore said that his con- 
 version to Christian Science was due to the complete 
 cure of a disease that eminent London physicians had 
 pronounced incurable. But in the following August 
 _ he gave the most conclusive evidence possible that he 
 
 was pitifully mistaken. He died of it! His belief that 
 he was incapable of heart disease and, consequently, 
 couldn’t have the disease pronounced fatal by his phy- 
 sicians, converted him to Christian Science; then fatty 
 degeneration of the heart killed him. 
 
 Hundreds of such cases might be cited; but one or 
 two more shall suffice. 
 
DEATH 261 
 
 John S..Hawley was my friend. He was honest and 
 gentle and lovable, and I honoured and loved him. For 
 many years he was afflicted by a chronic disease of the 
 kidneys. Medicine pronounced his case hopeless. Mr. 
 Hawley did not want to die. He was much beloved 
 and life to him was precious. As a drowning man 
 clutches at a straw, Mr. Hawley clutched at Christian 
 Science. He was told that many cases of Bright’s 
 disease, that medical men had declared incurable, had 
 been completely cured by “ Science,” and that, more- 
 over, if he would surrender himself wholly to Mrs. 
 Eddy’s teachings and take her treatment “ there was 
 not the slightest doubt that complete physical healing 
 would follow.”’ A successful business man, Mr. Haw- 
 ley was not a critical thinker. He did not believe men 
 and women would lie as Mrs. Eddy’s “ healers ”’ lied. 
 He wanted to believe what he was told, and compelled 
 himself to believe it, actually did believe it. Then 
 came his ‘“ cure,” and so overflowing with gratitude 
 was he that he gave the Christian Scientists of San 
 Diego twenty-five thousand dollars to help them build 
 their church. Then this honest, trustful gentleman 
 died of his kidney disease. Chronic interstitial ne- 
 phritis, according to the official record, killed him. 
 
 Adam.H..Dickey is dead! At the time of his death, 
 Feb. 5, 1925, Dickey was Chairman of the Christian 
 Science Board of Directors and ruler in chief over 
 Christian-Sciencedom. He “ knew ” the infallibility of 
 Christian Science treatment; ‘“‘ knew ” the unreality of 
 disease and death; “‘ knew ” the heart and the kidneys 
 and the arteries had nothing to do with life; yet 
 “chronic endocarditis, chronic nephritis and general 
 arterio-sclerosis,”’ that is to say, a disease of the heart 
 and a disease of the kidneys and a disease of the arter- 
 
262 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 ies, of long standing, killed Dickey. One of these dis- 
 eases, In chronic form, will, sooner or later, cause 
 death; but the most prominent, most influential, most 
 powerful, most convinced of contemporary Christian 
 Scientists died, as certified by the Medical Examiner, 
 of all three. 
 
 “The heart, blood, lungs, brain, have nothing to do 
 with life,” and “the sick are not cured by declaring 
 that there is no sickness, but by knowing that there is 
 none,” and “man is incapable of death,” Mrs. Eddy 
 said. Yet Mrs. Eddy and Hanna and McLellan and 
 Farlow and Kimball and Strickler and Armstrong and 
 Johnson and Mrs. Leonard and the Earl of Dunmore 
 and Adam H. Dickey and John S. Hawley and thou- 
 sands of other Christian Scientists, accepting Mrs. 
 Eddy’s teaching have sickened and died. 
 
 If these things do not shake the faith of Mrs. Eddy’s 
 dupes in her “religion ” and her infallible healing sys- 
 tem, then all the world, and God, cannot convince such 
 people that they are a snare and a delusion, a lie and 
 a sham. 
 
 Let it never be forgotten that to many thousands 
 Christian Science has meant the tragedy of needless 
 suffering and premature death; and, when helpless 
 children have been similarly victimised, the crime is 
 one that calls for retribution, swift and sure. 
 
Vil 
 CASH 
 
 “ Fleal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast 
 out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.” 
 | —Jksus CuRIst. 
 
 “Christian Science demonstrates that the patient who 
 pays whatever he 1s able to pay for healing is more apt to 
 recover than he who withholds the slight equivalent for 
 health.’—Mary B. Eppy. 
 
 in Boston are embellished with parallel passages 
 
 from the teachings of Jesus and the writings of 
 Mrs. Eddy, of equal authority with the faithful; but 
 search will not discover the words of Jesus quoted 
 above. The only person who received Christian 
 Science freely was Mrs. Eddy; nobody ever got it from 
 her except for cash. Hence her constant exhortation 
 that those who had paid dearly for it should contrive 
 to sell the “divine power that heals”; and Mrs. 
 Eddy’s assurance that Christian Science demonstrates 
 the curative power of prompt payment of bills has been 
 highly useful to her “ healers.” 
 
 From the first to last Christian Science, with Mrs. 
 Eddy, was a business, a money-making enterprise and 
 nothing more. She took it up because it promised cash 
 in hand, when cash was sorely needed; she kept at it 
 because it yielded cash far beyond her wildest expecta- 
 tion. At the start, when upwards of sixty years of age, 
 
 263 
 
 A dirs walls of the great Christian Science church 
 
264 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 she hadn’t a dollar; upon her death the official apprais- 
 ers of her estate estimated its value at three million dol- 
 _ Jars. There wasn’t an honest dollar in the three million. 
 - ‘The taint of fraud and false pretence was over it all. 
 The business character of Mrs. Eddy’s Christian 
 Science has been judicially declared. When applica- 
 tion was made to him for a Christian Science church 
 charter, Judge Arnold, of the Court of Common Pleas 
 of Philadelphia, denied the application on the stated 
 ground that Christian Science was a business, and not a 
 religion; and, on appeal, the Supreme Court of Penn- 
 sylvania sustained his finding and denounced the teach- 
 ings of Christian Science as contrary to public policy. 
 
 That Mrs. Eddy was the victim of certain delusions 
 there isn’t the shadow of a doubt; but it is equally 
 certain that, in matters of business, she was extraor- 
 dinarily level-headed. Unhampered by scruples of any 
 kind she went to her mark as straight as a bullet to the 
 bull’s-eye. Early in her career, realising the exceeding 
 ease with which average human beings, untrained in 
 thinking, are fooled along religious and medical lines, 
 she deliberately proceeded to fool them to the top of 
 their bent. Mrs. Eddy was a veritable female P. T. 
 Barnum. Self-styled the “ Prince of Humbugs,” Bar- 
 num created a show which appealed to the credulous, 
 to those who delighted in fakers and freaks; the 
 “High Priestess of Humbugs,”’—Mary Eddy’s—show 
 appealed to the gullible without faith in religion and 
 without hope of cure of ills of which they suffered, to 
 those who dearly love to believe in the absolute truth 
 of the utterly meaningless, who are constantly on the 
 lookout for the absurdity that will the most tax their 
 powers of belief, who mistake boldness for veracity and 
 cunning for candour. 
 
CASH 265 
 
 There are many points of similarity between the 
 male and female Barnum, but there are differences. 
 The man made humbuggery a business because both he 
 and the humbugged enjoyed it; but he gave them 
 something for their money. The woman made hum- 
 buggery a business, but the humbugged got nothing for 
 what she extorted. He converted American credulity 
 into American coin, astounded, amused, provoked to 
 laughter; but he adversely affected no person’s health 
 or happiness. She made her millions out of the human 
 love of being fooled; but she broke up homes, ruined 
 lives and dotted the country with needless graves. He 
 misrepresented and lied and cheated, but he laid hand 
 on no sacred thing. She misrepresented and lied and 
 cheated, and nothing was too sacred for her sacri- 
 legious touch, nothing so pitiful that she abstained 
 from meddling with it if it promised a dollar. Religion 
 was her business, God her stock-in-trade. Barnum 
 with his circus and Eddy with her religio-medical mas- 
 querade had one aim—the very last cent their re- 
 spective shows could be made to yield. 
 
 If anyone doubts this, let him read what follows, and 
 investigate for himself. Then let him hit: the damned 
 thing known as Christian Science every time he gets 
 a chance. 
 
 My esteemed collaborator, Dr. Riley, has clearly 
 shown that Mrs. Eddy, in large part, appropriated a 
 system of mental healing from Phineas P. Quimby, 
 which, after his death, in 1866, she claimed to have 
 discovered by revelation from God, and that she from 
 time to time supplemented it with odds and ends of 
 more or less harmonious thought wherever she found 
 it. At first she professed it to be a healing system and 
 nothing more, and expressly objected to its being 
 
266 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 called a religion; but, at a later date, having discov- 
 ered the commercial value of the religious idea, she 
 proclaimed it the final and absolute religion. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy never attempted to heal, never undertook 
 to demonstrate the efficacy of her system by, herself, 
 treating and curing disease. She taught. Teaching 
 war far safer than treating. It was not subject to 
 discredit by failure. Wise in her day and generation, 
 Mrs. Eddy took no such chance. A failure by another 
 did not, necessarily, discredit Mrs. Eddy or her system. 
 Want of understanding accounted for it, an insuffic- 
 iency of faith. Of course Mrs. Eddy said she had 
 cured, made the most extravagant boasts of healings 
 effected. She never told the name of a person she 
 pretended to have cured. Her alleged healings were 
 the boldest, most infamous falsehoods. I am not ex- 
 pressing an opinion. I am stating a fact. She simply 
 taught, but, heavens, what profitable teaching! 
 
 For a short period, at the beginning of her teaching 
 career, Mrs. Eddy advertised that she would not ask 
 for pay unless skill in healing resulted; but there was 
 no money in such a method and it was almost immedi- 
 ately abandoned and a scheme of advance payments 
 adopted. The guarantee vanished forever and stu- 
 dents were required to sign a contract to pay a hundred 
 dollars in advance, ten per cent. of their earnings from 
 the practice of Christian Science and the substantial 
 sum of a thousand dollars if they didn’t earn anything 
 by its use. We have very conclusive evidence of the 
 terms of this contract. Several suits were brought by 
 the teacher against the taught for its enforcement. 
 The following is a duly certified transcript of her 
 contract as set forth in her complaint in one of 
 these suits: 
 
CASH 267 
 
 “ COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 “ E’ssex, ss. In Equity. 
 “Mary B. Eddy, Plaintiff, 
 WES 
 “ Daniel H. Spofford, Defendant. 
 
 “ Bill of Complaint. 
 
 “Aug. 17, 1870. We, the undersigned, do hereby agree 
 in consideration of instruction and manuscript received 
 from Mrs. Mary B. Glover to pay her one hundred dol- 
 lars in advance and ten per cent annually on the income 
 that we receive from practicing or teaching the same. We 
 also do hereby agree to pay the said Mary B. Glover one 
 thousand dollars in case we do not practice or teach the 
 science she has taught us. 
 
 “D. A. SPOFFORD, 
 “M. A. SPOFFORD, 
 “The foregoing is a true copy. 
 “ Attest: Ezra L. Woopsury, 
 “ [Seal of Court] Ass’t Clerk.” 
 
 A word of explanation of the diversity of names. 
 The founder of Christian Science was born Baker, 
 married a Glover and a Patterson and an Eddy. When 
 this contract was made, in 1870, she was the wife of 
 Patterson; hence was named Patterson. She had 
 ceased to regard Mr. Patterson with favour, so called 
 herself by the name of his predecessor, Glover. Be- 
 tween the making of the contract and the bringing of 
 the suit Mrs. Patterson, called Glover, had divorced 
 Patterson and married Eddy. I hope these facts are 
 here made plain. 
 
 Since contracts were made between men, did inge- 
 nuity ever evolve another like Mrs. Eddy’s? By its 
 terms she got a hundred dollars at the start. So much 
 was secure. To induce the Spoffords to practice or 
 teach and have an income that would yield her some- 
 
268 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 thing, she imposed a penalty of a thousand dollars if 
 they did not. They practiced and taught, so did not 
 render themselves liable to the penalty, but balked at 
 the ten per cent. of their income. They even had the 
 temerity to refuse to disclose its amount. Mrs. Eddy, 
 thereupon, dragged them into court to compel them to 
 disclose the amount of their earnings and disgorge 
 her share. 
 
 Jesus and Mrs. Eddy are equally revered by Chris- 
 
 tian Scientists; but their methods, it appears, were 
 dissimilar. 
 “ The Spofford suit was never tried and disposed of 
 upon its merits; but in another suit by Mrs. Eddy, 
 upon a precisely similar contract, against George Tut- 
 tle and Charles Stanley, Judge Choate, who heard all 
 the witnesses, including Mrs. Eddy, decided that the 
 contract was invalid because the consideration given 
 by Mrs. Eddy was without value. The system of heal- 
 ing, as explained by her, was, he declared, unintelligible 
 and worthless, and Tuttle and Stanley could not be 
 compelled to pay something for nothing. 
 
 This failure to prove value in her system discour- 
 aged the bringing of more suits upon her unique con- 
 tract, and doubtless led, in later years, to the by-law, 
 made by Mrs. Eddy for her Mother Church in Boston, 
 prohibiting an appeal to the courts to recover the value 
 of Christian Science treatment. One decision assert- 
 ing it to be valueless was enough. It was plain that 
 methods must be changed, and nothing whatever left 
 for courts to pass upon. Mrs. Eddy was equal to the 
 emergency. Cash in advance was the idea, enough 
 cash to fully compensate the great teacher for teaching 
 her precious Christian Science, and every cent of it 
 “strictly in advance.” 
 
CASH 269 
 
 I have elsewhere shown that Mrs. Eddy was com- 
 pletely destitute of education. She knew nothing of 
 literature, science, art, philosophy, metaphysics, his- 
 tory or any other branch of learning—nothing what- 
 ever. She knew nothing; but she had colossal nerve. 
 As “nothing is more audacious than ignorance,” so no 
 ignoramus was. ever more audacious than that now 
 under consideration. Without the slightest acquaint- 
 ance with things collegiate, Mrs. Eddy established a 
 “ college ” and made herself its president. The faculty 
 consisted, beside herself, of her third husband and her 
 adopted son. 
 
 I may remark, in passing, that Eddy (a sewing- 
 machine agent, when he made Mrs. Patterson’s ac- 
 quaintance), who called himself doctor, had the same 
 right to “Dr.” before his name that his wife had to 
 the ‘‘ Rev.” before hers: they reached out, took them, 
 and put them there. 
 
 The complete course of instruction in Mrs. Eddy’s 
 remarkable institution of learning consisted of thirty 
 lessons or lectures which could have been given in ten 
 days. ‘The tuition charge was eight hundred dollars, 
 eighty dollars a day; and not a syllable of tuition was 
 imparted until the president of the “ college” had full 
 payment in hand. 
 
 That the character of the Eddy establishment may 
 not rest upon my assertion and that it may not be lost 
 to history I rescue its prospectus, prepared by its 
 president and published in the September, 1886, num- 
 ber of her Christian Science Journal and give it here 
 in full: 
 
 “ MASSACHUSETTS METAPHYSICAL COLLEGE 
 “ Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, President, 
 “571 Columbus Ave., Boston, Mass. 
 
270 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 “This institution, chartered by the Commonwealth of 
 Massachusetts in 1881, receives both male and female 
 students. 
 
 “Tt gives ample instruction in every scientific method 
 of medicine. 
 
 “It meets the demand of the age for something higher 
 than physic or drugging to restore to the race hope and 
 health. 
 
 “Mental healing is taught on a purely practical basis, 
 to aid the development of human mind, and to impart a 
 thorough understanding of the divine power and presence 
 to promote and restore health. 
 
 “The collegiate course in Christian Science, metaphys- 
 ical healing, includes twelve lessons. Class convenes at 
 10 a. M. First week, six consecutive lessons. ‘Term con- 
 tinues about three weeks. ‘Tuition, $300. 
 
 “Course in metaphysical obstetrics includes six daily 
 lectures, and is open to students from this college. 
 Tuition, $100. 
 
 “Class in theology, open (like the above) to graduates, 
 receives six additional lessons on the Scriptures, and 
 summary of the principles and practice of Christian 
 Science. $200. 
 
 “Normal class is open to those who have taken the first 
 course at this college. Six daily lectures complete the 
 normal course. Tuition, $200. It is advisable to practice 
 at least one year before entering the above class. 
 
 “Those sending their names in due season will receive 
 timely notice of the commencement of classes. No 
 invalids, and only persons of good moral character are 
 accepted as students. All students are subject to exami- 
 nation and rejection ; and they are liable to leave the class, 
 if found unfit to remain in it. 
 
 “A few students can be accommodated with rooms and 
 board at the college. Reasonable board can be obtained in 
 the vicinity of the college. A limited number of clergy- 
 men received free of charge. Largest discount to indi- 
 
CASH 271 
 
 gent students, $100 on the first course; no deduction on 
 the others. Husband and wife entered together for $300. 
 “Tuition for all strictly in advance. 
 “N. B. No consultations on disease outside of the 
 class.” 
 
 The Christian Science campaign of suppression shall 
 not suppress this prospectus. First published in 1886, 
 I make it public again in 1925. Standing alone it is a 
 thousand times more than enough to put the stamp of 
 charlatanry upon Mrs. Eddy and all her works. Hope- 
 less is the mind that, contemplating Mrs. Eddy’s 
 “metaphysical college,” persists in regarding her the 
 God-elected successor to Jesus. Far easier is it to 
 believe in the green-cheese consistency of the moon. 
 
 A word or two of comment upon this Eddy get-rich- 
 quick scheme: 
 
 While the “ college ” purported to give “ lectures ” 
 on various aspects of Christian Science, there was really 
 nothing new, nothing more than Mrs. Eddy had given 
 Spofford, Tuttle, Stanley and the others under the 
 original contract. The only departure from the earlier 
 plan was in the rates and the insistence upon payment 
 of the full amount in advance. The charge advanced 
 from one hundred dollars to three hundred dollars, and 
 nothing was left to the good faith of the student, 
 nothing to court enforcement. ‘“‘ The collegiate course 
 in Christian Science, metaphysical healing” by the 
 “‘ Rev.” President was the whole show. “ Dr.” Eddy, 
 the husband, and Dr. Foster-Eddy, the adopted son, 
 not professing divine inspiration, failed to hold the 
 interest of seekers after truth—at the price. Few at- 
 tended their lectures and they shortly disappeared from 
 the curriculum. ‘ The immaculate impersonation of 
 
272 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 the spiritual idea,’ herself, alone commanded the price 
 of admission. All gladly paid twenty-five dollars for 
 each of her twelve discources and deemed them cheap. 
 When [ say all, I mean all of four thousand. 
 
 The three-hundred-for-twelve rate was a divine in- 
 spiration. God told Mrs. Eddy what to say and God 
 told her what to charge for saying it. She admits it. 
 Personally, she thought the charge too high and shrank 
 from asking it, but God insisted and Mrs. Eddy, so 
 conciliatory was her disposition, yielded. I am not 
 speaking of my own knowledge, of course. I am taking 
 Mrs. Eddy’s word for it. ‘‘ When God impelled me to 
 set a price on Christian Science mind healing,” she 
 said, “‘ I could think of no financial equivalent for the 
 impartation of a knowledge of that divine power that 
 heals; but I was led to name three hundred dollars as 
 the price for each pupil in one course of lessons at my 
 college; a startling sum for tuition lasting barely three 
 weeks. This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank 
 from asking it, but was finally led by a strange Provi- 
 dence to accept this fee. God has since shown me in 
 multitudinous ways the wisdom of this decision.” 
 
 So that’s that. God did it. Mrs. Eddy was startled, 
 amazed! One hundred dollars had been her own valu- 
 ation, and when God raised it to three hundred her soul 
 was greatly troubled within her. She argued with God. 
 She retreated and fled from his proposal; but God 
 overtook and overcame her. Mrs. Eddy, poor woman, 
 succumbed. [I entertain a suspicion that she reached 
 out both hands and—grabbed! 
 
 After realising the wisdom of obedience to God’s 
 command, Mrs. Eddy considered if it were not possible 
 to advance the rates fixed by God. She had found the 
 three-hundred-for-twelve extremely easy, not only to 
 
CASH 273 
 
 charge, but to collect, so, without taking counsel with 
 God, without any perturbation of spirit, without 
 shrinking or.evasion, she boldly raised her charge 
 nearly a hundred per cent. God had no responsibility 
 for that. From twenty-five dollars per lesson she in- 
 creased the charge to forty-two dollars. That is to say, 
 she reduced the course to seven lessons without any 
 reduction in the charge. Three hundred dollars for 
 seven lessons was the new charge. Three-hundred-for- 
 twelve had been the charge for the “ collegiate course.” 
 Three-hundred-for-seven was the charge for the “‘ pri- 
 mary ” course. Down from collegiate to primary and 
 up from twenty-five to forty-two; but collegiate and 
 primary were identical, precisely the same thing she 
 had sold to Spofford at eight-thirty-three per lesson. 
 
 As I am anxious that my word alone should not be 
 taken for these monstrous things, I quote Mrs. Eddy 
 in support thereof: 
 
 “ Having reached a place in teaching,” she said, “ where 
 my students in Christian Science are taught more during 
 seven lessons in the primary class than they were formerly 
 in twelve, and taught all that is profitable at one time, 
 hereafter the primary class shall include seven lessons 
 only. As this number of lessons is of more value than 
 twice this number in times past, no change is made in the 
 price of tuition, three hundred dollars. 
 
 “ Mary BAKER G, Eppy.” 
 
 This announcement was published in The Christian 
 Science Journal of December, 1888. 
 
 In 1886, Mrs. Eddy said God had fixed the charge 
 at three hundred dollars, twenty-five dollars per lesson. 
 In 1888, affirming the value of seven lessons to be twice 
 
274 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 as valuable as before, she boosted the charge to forty- 
 two dollars per lesson. There is another view of the 
 matter. If her revelation was worth only half as much 
 in 1886, when she charged twenty-five dollars for one- 
 twelfth of it, as it was in 1888, when the price for one- 
 seventh was forty-two dollars, what was its actual value 
 in 1870, when it cost Spofford only eight dollars and 
 thirty-three and a third cents per lesson? The divine 
 word reached Mrs. Eddy, as she said, in 1866. When 
 it was new and fresh its value was less than a fifth of 
 her valuation of it when it had somewhat staled 
 with age. 
 
 It is clear that Mrs. Eddy’s character underwent a 
 transformation between the years 1886 and 1888. In 
 the year first named she was a modest, shrinking violet: 
 in the latter, she had the audacity to set her judgment 
 _ above God’s. 
 
 I have intimated that four thousand people paid the 
 Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy this extortionate charge for 
 “ instruction ’’ which the Supreme Court of Massa- 
 chusetts, after hearing her explanation under oath, had 
 declared to be valueless. I know nothing about it my- 
 self, and am again compelled to take her word for it. 
 She said so, and I believe her. It is an established rule 
 of law that testimony of the most disreputable person 
 may be taken as true, if contrary to the interest of the 
 witness. The gouging of four thousand trustful people 
 out of three hundred dollars each for a thing of no 
 value is so discreditable a performance that I accept 
 Mrs. Eddy’s statement that she did it. 
 
 ‘‘ During seven years,” in the preface to the 1898 
 edition of Science and Health, she said, “some four 
 thousand students were taught by the author in this 
 college.” 
 
CASH 275 
 
 Four thousand times three hundred is one million 
 two hundred thousand—an annual income of a hundred 
 and seventy thousand dollars. But that is not quite 
 accurate, and I want to be entirely fair. Husband and 
 wife, for the purposes of tuition, were considered one. 
 Three hundred dollars paid for both. Few husbands 
 attended the “ lectures ” with their wives; but to give 
 her the benefit of the uncertainty, let us knock off the 
 two hundred thousand. If she tells the truth, every 
 dollar of the round million, she got. But, it will be 
 said, there were “indigent students,” who got a dis- 
 count of a hundred dollars. True; but every one of 
 the indigents subsequently paid in full. Speaking of 
 them in The Christian Science Journal of April, 1898, 
 she said: 3 
 
 “ Afterwards, with touching tenderness, those very stu- 
 dents sent me the full tuition money. However, I re- 
 turned this money with love, but it was again mailed to me 
 in letters begging me to accept it, saying, “ Your teachings 
 are worth much more to me than money can be.’ ” 
 
 I can see that money going back to the tender stu- 
 dents, with love! I can almost hear Mrs. Eddy ex- 
 claim: ‘‘ Bless my soul and body! One would think I 
 am in this revelation business for what there is in it 
 for me.” And, in an aside to the ever-attentive Frye: 
 —‘ Calvin, get this money in the bank just as soon as 
 God’ll let you.” So nothing should be deducted for the 
 indigent ones, and the income, from teaching at the 
 “ college,” remains, a million dollars. 
 
 So much for teaching, ‘for an impartation of a 
 knowledge of that divine power that heals.” 
 
 Much money has been made by the writers of books 
 
276 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 and by the publishers of books; but in every instance, — 
 save Mrs. Eddy’s, they had in them something of learn- 
 ing or imagination or humour. Mrs. Eddy wrote a 
 book. Yes, in its original form, it was her work. 
 Mark Twain took the trouble to compare the original 
 edition with the book in its final form and said Mrs. 
 Eddy was “a shameless old swindler ” for claiming 
 authorship of both. Science and Health has, almost 
 from its first publication, in 1875, been a three-dollar 
 book, and has had an enormous sale. 
 
 In 1889, Mrs. Eddy closed her “ college.”” The rea- 
 son for shutting up the famous institution was best 
 known to its President and the District Attorney of 
 Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The reason given is 
 contained in the announcement in The Christian 
 Science Journal of September, 1889, elsewhere quoted 
 in full. 
 
 That’s the idea. There was too much money in it. 
 Applications for the primary course of seven lessons 
 that would have yielded forty-eight thousand dollars 
 were on her desk, so she closed her .“ college.” So 
 many people flocked to her class-room that she couldn’t 
 do her best work and she would give nothing but her 
 very best. So there was no alternative but to put aside 
 forty-eight thousand dollars, and turn away all appli- 
 cants. How Mrs. Eddy had changed since the days 
 when she was crowding poor Spofford in the courts to 
 wring out of him her ten per cent. of his income! The 
 alternative of accommodating all applicants by taking 
 as many at a time as she could give her best work to, 
 say, a quarter of them, does not appear to have sug- 
 gested itself. Forty-eight thousand dollars was within 
 the reach of the woman who, to my certain knowledge, 
 made one of her students mortgage her home to secure 
 
CASH 277 
 
 payment of the three hundred dollars tuition charge, 
 and forty-eight thousand more would be clamouring 
 for acceptance as soon as the pending applications had 
 been disposed of; so there was nothing to do but shut 
 up shop. Thus ended Mrs. Eddy’s teaching career. A 
 less labourious and more profitable field attracted her. 
 She was not looking for trouble with the prosecuting 
 attorney’s office, so up went the shutters on the Massa- 
 chusetts Metaphysical College! 
 
 A book may be a gold mine—a Bonanza. Mrs. Eddy 
 had just such a book. There was never any other book 
 like it. It contained a revelation and its perusal 
 hedled all manner of disease. By copyrighting the 
 book, Mrs. Eddy secured a complete monopoly of the 
 revelation and the book’s healing properties. Nobody 
 could have the revelation from God, nobody could read 
 and be healed without paying Mrs. Eddy for it. The 
 ownership of such a property is the ownership of the 
 most valuable thing on earth, the thing that people will 
 most gladly give money to possess. That’s the kind of 
 book Mrs. Eddy owned the copyright of. She said so, 
 and many hundreds of thousands of dollars, in conse- 
 quence, streamed into her coffers from a multitude of 
 believers. 
 
 I make its “author”? my witness. I ask her, Did 
 you write Science and Health? And she answers, “TI 
 should blush to write of Science and Health as I have 
 were it of human origin and I, apart from God, its 
 author.” How about its curative properties? And the 
 witness responds, ‘‘ The perusal of the author’s publi- 
 cations heals sickness.” 
 
 For the former response, see The Christian Science 
 Journal, January, 1901; for the latter, Science and 
 Health, 1898, page 443. 
 
 cc 
 
278 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Possession of such a property is one thing; to make 
 others believe it to be such a property is another mat- 
 ter. Its price was not less than three dollars, and Mrs. 
 Eddy’s royalty not less than a dollar a book. Sale for 
 a number of years after its publication, in 1875, was 
 slow, exceedingly slow. No reputable publisher wanted 
 it, and the first edition was printed at the expense of 
 friends, who sank twenty-two hundred dollars in it. 
 Mrs. Eddy risked nothing, presumably had nothing to 
 risk. There was no money for the ordinary kinds of 
 advertising, no means of creating a demand. The cost 
 of printing and binding was not recovered from sales. 
 The retail price started at two dollars and a half, but 
 the book went begging at a dollar. Mrs. Eddy ped- 
 died it herself and her friends disposed of it as they 
 were able, but it was a drug on the market. With 
 the establishment of The Christian Science Journal, 
 however, an advertising agency came into existence, 
 but its small circulation was limited to converts who 
 had bought it when they took their lessons from 
 Mrs. Eddy. 
 
 Abandonment of the “college” (which meant 
 nothing more than stopping teaching, her residence fur- 
 nishing the seat of the “ college”) with its large in- 
 come, put Mrs. Eddy upon inquiry for ways and means 
 of maintaining and augmenting her resources. At this 
 precise moment, the great idea dawned, whether by 
 revelation or otherwise, deponent saith not. Then dis- 
 covered she the philosopher’s stone which, in her hands, 
 was to transmute heaps of worthless paper into heaps 
 of solid gold. 
 
 Ownership of a religion and ownership of a church 
 organisation and ownership of the personnel of the 
 organisation, its officers and members constitutes not 
 
CASH 279 
 
 only a ready market but a marvellous selling agency 
 for a book containing a revelation from God. Like- 
 wise some thousands of “ healers,’’ compelled to be 
 members of the church and subject to its discipline, 
 can be utilised to immense benefit in the sale not only 
 of a book dictated by God, but one the mere perusal of 
 which heals disease. I give Mrs. Eddy undivided 
 credit for that unique and profitable discovery. 
 
 Germinating in the fertile brain of the “ founder and 
 discoverer of Christian Science,” the idea rapidly took 
 complete possession of her and from the “ closing ” of 
 her “ college,” in August, 1889, until the end of her 
 days, her every energy was devoted to its development. 
 Immediately, in August, 1889, and coincident with the 
 closing of the ‘‘ college,” she foreclosed, fraudulently, 
 as I have shown, the mortgage given by her Boston 
 friends on the property they had bought there to build 
 a Christian Science church upon, and acquired it for 
 less than a quarter of its value. To have taken title 
 herself at once would have been to disclose her hand, 
 so it was juggled back and forth to and between sev- 
 eral intermediaries before it reached her. When she 
 finally had the title in her own name, she conveyed it to 
 trustees for the building of a church of her own, her 
 very own. The church was built; and a more costly 
 structure succeeded it. From its inception to the end 
 of Mrs. Eddy’s life she made every rule for its manage- 
 ment, she autocratically controlled its organisation; its 
 officers and members were her vassals and slaves. Her 
 control was despotic; their slavery, abject. 
 
 “Tt is said I make many mistakes about Christian 
 Science,” said Mark Twain, “ through being ignorant 
 of the spiritual meaning of its terminology. I believe 
 itis true. I have been misled all this time by the word 
 
280 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 ‘member,’ because there was no one to tell me that its 
 spiritual meaning was ‘ slave.’ ” 
 
 Obedience was required of all, unquestioning, 
 prompt. “ Experience and, above all, obedience, are 
 the tests of growth and understanding in Science,” 
 wrote Mrs. Eddy to her followers through her organ, 
 the Journal. 
 
 Slow in getting under way, the church grew and 
 flourished like the far-famed bay-tree. Its member- 
 ship mounted by leaps and bounds. Within ten years 
 it numbered upwards of twenty thousand. It was de- 
 nominated the Mother Church and all Christian Scien- 
 tists everywhere were urged and expected to enroll. 
 Mrs. Eddy asked them to, and her spokesman said her 
 request was God’s. Familiarity with Mrs. Eddy’s 
 great book, Science and Health, three dollars a copy, 
 was a requisite of membership. ‘“ Reading Rooms ” 
 opened all over the country, and all healers and teach- 
 ers, thousands of them, were required to buy in quan- 
 tities and keep the book on sale. Local churches and 
 societies and all healers and teachers were required to 
 advertise in The Christian Science Journal, and all 
 advertisers must be members of the Mother Church. 
 Exclusion of advertising automatically excluded the 
 excluded advertiser from the church and from repu- 
 table standing in the cult. The ordinary publisher 
 allows a discount to wholesale buyers of from twenty- 
 five to forty or fifty per cent. Wholesale buyers of 
 Eddy literature were allowed less than ten per cent. 
 
 In 1897, when her church membership was twenty 
 thousand and more, came Mrs. Eddy’s master-stroke, 
 the most audacious, most brazen performance of her 
 selfish and shameless life. The demand for her writ- 
 ings was large and the profits immense; but her greed 
 
CASH 5 281. 
 
 was insatiable. Trained in obedience to the will of 
 God as voiced by Mrs. Eddy in her every utterance, the 
 members waited only an expression of her wish to get 
 busy in her service. 
 
 Gathering together her random editorial and other 
 utterances in The Christian Science Journal from its 
 first publication, in 1883, Mrs. Eddy republished them 
 in a book entitled Miscellaneous Writings. It con- 
 tained nothing new; but so easy had it been found to 
 sell one book profitably that Mrs. Eddy knew there 
 would be no difficulty in adding to her income by pub- 
 lishing another, even if it were nothing but an inco- 
 herent rehash; so her church selling agency was 
 instructed to get busy and sell it. It mattered not to 
 her that people of culture, of wealth, of social position 
 had been lured into membership, every blessed son and 
 daughter of them was commanded, not asked, not be- 
 sought, nor politely requested, but brusquely ordered 
 to sell as many of the two books as they could: and 
 this, by their venerated leader, their revered teacher, 
 the God-anointed discoverer of Christian Science, 
 “ Rev.” Mary Baker G. Eddy. And every book so sold 
 would add at least a dollar to her hoard! 
 
 I have before me The Christian Science Journal of 
 March, 1897, and from page 575 I quote: 
 
 * NOTICE. 
 
 “The Christian Scientists in the United States and 
 Canada are hereby enjoined not to teach a student of 
 Christian Science for one year, commencing on March 
 14th, 1897, 
 
 “ Miscellaneous Writings is calculated to prepare the 
 minds of all true thinkers to understand the Christian 
 Science Text-book more correctly than a student can. 
 
282 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 “The Bible, Science and Health with Key to the Scrip- 
 tures, and my other published works, are the only proper 
 instructors for this hour. It shall be the duty of all Chris- 
 tian Scientists to circulate and to sell as many of these 
 books as they can. 
 
 “Tf a member of ‘The First Church of Christ, Scientist, 
 shall fail to obey this injunction, it will render him liable 
 to lose his membership in this Church. 
 
 “ Mary Baker Eppy.” 
 
 There it stands, naked and not ashamed! 
 
 Hundreds of teachers, having accepted payment for 
 a course of lessons on Christian Science, were per- 
 emptorily halted, instanter, and forbidden to resume 
 for a year. Even a student of Mrs. Eddy could not 
 prepare the minds of “true thinkers ” to understand 
 her three-dollar text-book so correctly as could her 
 new two-dollar book of odds and ends. 
 
 The jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court 
 stops at the Canadian line; its injunction runs only to 
 the border. Mrs. Eddy’s, on the contrary, stepped 
 over into a foreign country and, in the language of a 
 court, Canadians as well as Americans were com- 
 manded to stop teaching the Christian Science gospel 
 for a year. Thus the market for Miscellaneous 
 Writings was made. The Bible, which everybody 
 had, and Mrs. Eddy had not copyrighted, together 
 with writings which she had copyrighted, were the 
 only “ proper instructors.” Therefore, “It shall be 
 the duty of all Christian Scientists to circulate and 
 to sell as many of these books as they can.” “ All 
 Christian Scientists.’ How many did she think 
 “all”? were? In the book itself, on page thirty-four, 
 she said, “In 1883 a million of people acknowledge — 
 
CASH 283 
 
 and attest the blessings of this mental system of 
 treating disease.” It was a lie, of course, based on 
 nothing; but let us, for the moment, take her at her 
 word. If there were a million in 1883, there must 
 have been several millions in 1897, and all of these 
 several millions were commanded, as a duty, to circu- 
 late and sell books upon which every cent of profit 
 was Mrs. Eddy’s. In March, 1897, there were, at any 
 rate, some twenty thousand members of The First 
 Church of Christ, Scientist, and the order was espe- 
 cially for them. Obey they must, or render them- 
 selves liable to exclusion from the communion of Mrs. 
 Eddy’s saints. 
 
 A church is a place of worship, not of barter and 
 trade. In Mrs. Eddy’s church it was claimed by her, 
 the Pastor-Emeritus, that God spoke, through her, to 
 His people; but the threat of refusal to there permit 
 of the worship of God, and God’s voice to be heard 
 was explicitly made against all who should “ fail to 
 obey this injunction” and circulate and sell as many 
 books as they could for the pecuniary profit of the 
 Pastor-Emeritus. 
 
 It would seem that self-respecting members would 
 have resented this tone of command and repudiated 
 Mrs. Eddy there and then, repudiated her with disgust 
 and loathing. They did nothing of the kind. All 
 teachers stopped teaching and sold books. All church 
 members bowed the head and for a year circulated and 
 sold all the books they could. 
 
 Talk about gold mines! ‘‘ And God said, let there 
 be light; and there was light.” And “ God’s Voice to 
 this age’ said circulate and sell; and they circulated 
 and sold. The analogy is not wholly unwarranted. On 
 page fifty-four of Miscellaneous Writings are these 
 
284 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 words: “ Has Mrs. Eddy lost her power to heal? Has 
 the sun forgotten to shine, and the planets to revolve 
 around it? ” 
 
 From sun and planets, it is only another step to God. 
 
 Everything indicates that Christian Science is on the 
 downward path. The structure reared upon a moun- 
 tain of lies is toppling to its fall. The exploiters at the 
 head have for years been at one another’s throats. 
 The treasure is immense and the greed Eddyistic. 
 When Christian Science and its founder have taken 
 their place in history nothing more will be needed to 
 stamp it and her with gross commercialism and her 
 dupes with ignominious idolatry and self-abasement, 
 than the leader’s “injunction” and the followers’ 
 servile obedience. 
 
 Surely this is enough; but it is not all. The task is 
 wearisome and, perhaps, supererogatory; but it is not 
 complete, and I proceed. 
 
 In 1897, Mrs. Eddy was seventy-six years old. But 
 age did not wither nor did custom stale her infinite 
 voraciousness. In 1908, in her eighty-eighth year, she 
 made her final grab. She was decrepit and feeble. Her 
 head shook with palsy and her fleshless hands trembled. 
 When she went for her daily drive, servants bore her 
 in their arms to her carriage and her personal attend- 
 ant, later supreme head of Christian Science, held 
 her erect upon the seat. But in her heart was the 
 life-long hungering for money; in her mind the life- 
 long guile. 
 
 When a reputable publisher has sold you a book, and 
 you have paid for it, he does not try to sell it to you 
 over again. He doesn’t transpose chapters, call it a 
 new book and try to work off another copy on you. 
 He doesn’t take out a couple of lines, substitute a 
 
CASH 285 
 
 couple of meaningless lines in their place and argue 
 that life will not be worth living if you don’t procure 
 the book with the priceless additions. No reputable 
 publisher would think of resorting to such swindling 
 methods. Mrs. Eddy and her publisher did it con- 
 stantly. I have seen six or eight copies of Science and 
 Health on the shelf of the same person. It was com- 
 mon practice for the faithful to buy every new edition. 
 In one instance the only newness was a new picture of 
 the author. Three dollars for that! The latest of 
 these dodges was worked on a trustful following in 
 1908, when the suit of the sons was pending. The 
 announcement of the book was as follows: 
 
 “TAKE NOTICE! 
 
 “T request Christian Scientists universally to read the 
 paragraph beginning at line thirty on page four hundred 
 and forty-two in the edition of Science and Health, which 
 will be issued February 29. I consider the information 
 there given to be of great importance at this stage of the 
 workings of animal magnetism and it will greatly aid the 
 students in their individual experiences. 
 
 “ Mary Baker G, Eppy,” 
 
 If there were a million Christian Scientists in 1883, 
 as Mrs. Eddy said, and several million in 1897, how 
 many, according to her reckoning, must there have 
 been in 1908? ‘This notice was published in February, 
 1908, twenty-five years after the million mark had been 
 reached. ‘The Bulletin of Religious Statistics of the 
 Federal Government, of 1909, gave the number of 
 Christian Scientists in the United States as 85,717, 
 with half of the members of the Boston church counted 
 twice, once there and again as members of their local 
 
286 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 church, leaving somewhere around sixty-five thousand 
 as the actual number. If Mrs. Eddy’s millions were 
 non-existent, even in her imagination, there were some- 
 thing like sixty or seventy thousand in the United 
 States and less than a hundred thousand in the world. 
 Addressing them universally, Mrs. Eddy said—“ Take 
 Notice! ” 
 
 She isn’t looking for money this time. She doesn’t 
 enjoin anybody. She doesn’t command, or even 
 threaten excommunication. She “ requests.” She po- 
 litely asks all to read the “ paragraph beginning at line 
 thirty of page four hundred and forty-two of the edi- 
 tion of Science and Health which will be issued Feb- 
 ruary 29,” because it is of “ great importance ” and 
 will ‘‘ greatly aid the students.” She didn’t ask the 
 readers in the many churches to make it known to the 
 members. She didn’t suggest any way of their getting 
 it “ free gratis for nothing.” It didn’t occur to her to 
 communicate it to the faithful under the caption “ Take 
 Notice,” and obviate the necessity of their spending 
 three dollars for it. The new paragraph wasn’t so 
 lengthy that it would have unduly prolonged a public 
 announcement in The Christian Science Journal; but 
 reading it in her three-dollar book would so much more 
 greatly aid the students, than getting it for nothing, 
 that it was better it should reach them so—better for 
 them and better for the author of the book—a dollar a 
 book better! Such reading, blessing him that gives 
 and her that takes, is twice blessed. 
 
 This ‘‘ Take Notice! ” was published when the sons’ 
 suit against Mrs. Eddy was pending and at the request 
 of my senior counsel, Senator William E. Chandler, 
 and with his money, be it added, I bought a copy of 
 February 29 edition of her book. It might be sup- 
 
CASH 287 
 
 posed to contain something new on the subject of Mrs. 
 Eddy’s pet delusion, mental malpractice, or, as she 
 usually called it, malicious animal magnetism, and, if 
 she were beginning to “ hedge,” we wanted to know it. 
 It was the Senator’s money, for, as I told him, I fore- 
 saw that we should be “stung.”” We were. On page 
 four hundred and forty-two, at line thirty, the chapter 
 had ended and there was a blank space admitting of a 
 short addition without the change of another page of 
 the book and at an expense of not more than a dollar. 
 Right there these two lines had been added: ‘ Chris- 
 tian Scientists, be a law to yourselves, that mental 
 malpractice can harm you neither when asleep nor 
 when awake.” 
 
 Three dollars apiece from Christian Scientists, uni- 
 versally, for that! And they ‘“‘ fell for it,” universally. 
 The edition was almost immediately exhausted. 
 
 What a simple thing it would have been for Mrs. 
 Eddy to have incorporated the invaluable two lines in 
 her announcement and saved a needless outlay of cash 
 by the faithful! The “ great benefit ” all would have 
 received from being told to ‘‘ be a law to themselves,” 
 would have as surely accrued to them, if she had sim- 
 ply published the lines over her signature; and, asleep 
 or awake, they would have been as amply protected 
 from the power of the evil one. But, how would that 
 profit Mrs. Eddy? How would that replenish her ex- 
 chequer? Not by a picayune. How much the scheme 
 netted the schemer, I am unable to say; but, whether 
 there were the millions of Mrs. Eddy’s estimate of the 
 more conservative number of the Federal Government’s 
 Bulletin, fifty thousand is a cautious guess of the 
 amount of the final contribution of Christian Scientists 
 to the fortune of its “ founder.” Again Mrs. Eddy, in 
 
288 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 her own person, illustrated the Christian Science con- 
 version of a fundamental teaching of Christ into, it is 
 more blessed to receive than to give. 
 
 I have so fully shown Mrs. Eddy’s unselfishness in 
 this chapter that I cannot forbear to cite the confirm- 
 atory evidence of her third husband’s opinion, pub- 
 lished by her after his lamented death. From page 
 thirty-four, Miscellaneous Writings, I take this pas- 
 sage: ‘“‘ Perhaps the following words of her husband, 
 the late Dr. Asa G. Eddy, afford the most concise, yet 
 complete, summary of the matter: ‘ Mrs. Eddy’s works 
 are the outgrowth of her life, I never knew so unselfish 
 an individual! ’”’ That settles it. Asa was dead, when 
 Mary said he had said these words. But even had he 
 been living, his courage would not have been equal to 
 a contradiction of his fearsome spouse. 
 
 Senator Chandler denounced the performance as a 
 plain swindle. If it was anything but the plainest of 
 swindles, I am incapable of understanding the most 
 obvious of human motives. 
 
 Had Mrs. Eddy possessed the slightest sense of 
 humour, she would never have perpetrated many of 
 her tricks; for she would have found them so laughable 
 she would have avoided the ridicule she would have 
 known them to excite. She took herself with the very 
 greatest solemnity, never suspecting that she was the 
 funniest fakir that ever happened. 
 
 One or two of Mrs. Eddy’s funniest contrivances for 
 enlarging her bank-balance and, correspondingly, con- 
 tracting those of her followers, must be given and then 
 I am done—completely, I hope. 
 
 In 1899, I was attorney for a client who had libel 
 suits for large sums pending against Mrs. Eddy and 
 some of her principal aids. The chief defendant was 
 
CASH 289 
 
 much perturbed and employed many able and costly 
 lawyers to protect her interests. I may remark that 
 we did not prevail because Mrs. Eddy had cautiously 
 omitted the name of the object of her assault from the 
 libellous attack and we did not satisfy the court of her 
 identity with the plaintiff. As usual, when financial 
 exigencies arose, Mrs. Eddy, confronted with the large 
 expense of the litigation, cast about for some means of 
 shifting the burden on to her trustful and generous 
 disciples. Christmas was at hand and she knew she 
 would be the recipient of countless presents for which 
 she had less than no use, that would contribute nothing 
 to the payment of lawyers’ bills. So she contrived, 
 without diverting the flow of presents already bought 
 and shipped, to supplement it with a useful flood of 
 cash. Not wishing to ask for money outright, but with 
 the purpose of getting it, in The Christian Science 
 Journal, four days before Christmas, she published 
 what follows: 
 
 “A CARD. 
 
 “ Beloved: I ask this favour of all Christian Scientists. 
 Do not give me on, before or after the forthcoming holi- 
 days, aught material except three tea jackets. All may 
 contribute to these. One learns to value material things 
 only as one needs them, and the costliest things are those 
 that one needs least. Among my present needs material 
 are these three jackets. Two of darkish, heavy silk, the 
 shade appropriate to white hair. The third of heavy satin, 
 lighter shade, but sufficiently sombre. Nos. one and two 
 to be common sense jackets for Mother to work in, and 
 not over trimmed by any means. No. three for best, such 
 as she can afford for her drawing-room. Mary BAKER 
 Eppy.” 
 
 The first thing to be noticed here is that, although 
 
200 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 the writer particularly describes tea jackets she says 
 Christian Scientists may give her, she doesn’t want 
 anyone to give her tea jackets of darkish, heavy 
 silk, appropriate to white hair, or of heavy satin, 
 lighter shade, but sufficiently sombre, tea jackets for 
 “Mother ” to work in, or for drawing room functions. 
 Nobody is permitted to send tea jackets of any descrip- 
 tion. The ‘“ Beloved millions ” are told they may give 
 the tea jackets by sending ‘‘ Mother” the money to 
 buy them. ‘ All may contribute.” All may send their 
 contributions straight to her and all should send them 
 forthwith. The jackets were for Christmas, and 
 Christmas was but four days off. 
 
 Was there ever a more amusing circumlocution? 
 Did any genius for comicality ever evolve anything 
 more excruciatingly comical? Mrs. Eddy saw nothing 
 funny init. Her devotees saw nothing funny in it. All 
 the faithful contributed. ‘ Obedience” was a test of 
 faith. All obeyed, and remitted. 
 
 If the “ Card ” of December 21 had somewhat per- 
 plexed her “ beloved,’’ whose Christmas presents were 
 on the way to their “ Mother,” what must have been 
 their obfuscation, when the jacket contributions had 
 been added, to be informed that jackets were not 
 wanted. Giving the dear ones a full week to get 
 their checks in the mail, Mrs. Eddy then told them 
 not to bother any more about it, and, when God 
 had fully provided for their own need of clothing, 
 He would facilitate their purpose to replenish her 
 wardrobe. ‘This is the second communication as it 
 appeared in The Christian Science Sentinel of De- 
 cember 28: 
 
 A CARD. 
 “Beloved: I accept most gratefully your purpose to 
 
CASH 291. 
 
 clothe me, and when God has clothed you sufficiently, He 
 will make it easy for you to clothe one of His little ones. 
 Give yourselves no more trouble to get the three garments 
 called for by me through last week’s Sentinel. 
 
 “ Mary BAKER Eppy. 
 
 “ Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., Dec. 25, 1899.” 
 
 “One of his little ones ’””—Mrs. Eddy! How de- 
 licious! A baby-smile on the face of a lynx. Just one 
 thing is plain. Presents and contributions being at 
 Pleasant View, or on the way thither, ‘‘ Mother,” 
 round-aboutly as usual, tells donors and contributors, 
 “all,” to forget it. 
 
 A mild curiosity lingers with me to know how the 
 thing panned out, how many tea jackets, gay or sombre, 
 came along, notwithstanding the request for cash only, 
 and how much money reached Mrs. Eddy’s eager 
 hand? But I shall never know. If “all” gave but a 
 dollar each, there must have been well over fifty thou- 
 sand dollars in the tea-jacket fund. If more, more. 
 Who would have exhibited so little zeal and faith and 
 love as the contribution of but a single dollar would 
 have shown? 
 
 “‘One more, and this the last,” as Othello exclaimed, 
 when he gave poor Desdemona that last kiss. 
 
 Now, it is spoons for sale, authentic Christian 
 Science spoons, silver teaspoons exquisitely ornamented 
 with Mrs. Eddy’s head in bas-relief, and a picture of 
 Pleasant View and, most wonderful of all, a Christian 
 Science motto by Mrs. Eddy’s very self—and all for 
 the beggarly sum of three dollars, for plain silver bowls, 
 five dollars for gold-plated bowls. Sermons in stone, 
 we had heard of, but here we have a silver-spoon ser- 
 mon, a great preachment in tabloid form. Every living 
 
292 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 person needs the great truth of this little sermon and 
 can possess it by buying but a single spoon,—not 
 otherwise;—-but those who have the price, will want a 
 dozen. ‘“‘ Mother” knows what is good for “ Scien- 
 tists,” no less than what is remunerative for “‘ Mother,” 
 and ‘‘ Mother ” says—‘ Buy! ” 
 
 Mrs. Eddy’s spoon enterprise, aS announced in her 
 Journal for February, 1899, is: 
 
 “ Christian Science Spoons—On each of these most 
 beautiful spoons is a motto in bas-relief that every person 
 on earth needs to hold in thought. Mother requests that 
 Christian Scientists shall not ask to be informed what this 
 motto is, but each Scientist shall purchase at least one 
 spoon, and those who can afford it, one dozen spoons, that 
 their families may read this motto at every meal and their 
 guests be made partakers of its simple truth. 
 
 “ Mary Baker G, Eppy.” 
 
 “The above-named spoons,” was added in a post- 
 
 scriptum (as Mrs. Eddy would say) “ will soon be on 
 sale at the Christian Science reading rooms throughout 
 the country.” 
 
 Reading rooms, ostensibly places where those inter- 
 ested in Christian Science could read its literature, 
 without buying, almost immediately after their estab- 
 lishment became sales-rooms for the Eddy writings. 
 Not only had Mrs. Eddy her exclusive publisher, she 
 had what amounted to her exclusive book stores, es- 
 tablished and maintained without cost to her. Nothing 
 but her wares, Christian Science periodicals and a few 
 approved pamphlets were sold, and zealous salesmen, 
 or women, were constantly in attendance. Bibles could 
 
CASH 293 
 
 be bought there, too, bound within the same covers as 
 her book, two Bibles, two divine revelations in one 
 volume. For the sale of the Eddy spoons, the reading- 
 rooms were excellent selling agencies, and spoons went 
 off like hot cakes. Many bought by the dozen or more. 
 Curiosity to learn the invaluable motto, whose saving 
 grace could be had only at a cost of three dollars, in- 
 duced many to buy. It was a flourishing and highly 
 profitable business. Manufacturable at a cost of not 
 more than a dollar and a half and two dollars respec- 
 tively, the spoons sold for three and five. One of the 
 then deluded told me he paid sixty dollars for a dozen 
 of the plated bowls. 
 
 A spoon is a gross material thing, the invention of 
 civilised man for conveying a material substance from 
 one material body to another; and embossed upon this 
 material thing was the motto,—‘*‘ Not matter, but mind, 
 satisfieth ’—on a SPOON! 
 
 Mrs. Eddy’s income from the speculation, I have no 
 means of knowing; but who can believe she valued her 
 “motto ” at less than a dollar per spoon, or doubt that 
 many thousands were sold? 
 
 Now, I come to ask this question: Was Christian 
 Science a religion with Mrs. Eddy, or was it a business? 
 If evidence can prove anything, have I not shown, by 
 the testimony of Mrs. Eddy herself, that she was the 
 most mercenary charlatan that ever took the name of 
 God in vain? She did not hesitate to set herself up as 
 the equal of Jesus. Too shrewd to make the open 
 avowal, she made it by implication and encouraged 
 others to make it openly. In The Christian Science 
 Journal, when it belonged to, and was published by her, 
 it was expressly claimed for her and with her sanction 
 that she was in every respect the equal of Jesus. 
 
294 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 “ Now, a word about the horror many good people have 
 of our making the author of Science and Healih equal 
 with Jesus,” said the writer of the article, and ‘“‘ Jesus 
 demonstrated over all the beliefs of this false sense of 
 life, even over the belief of death, the last enemy to be 
 overcome.” And the bald affirmation is made that, 
 “Mrs. M. B. G. Eddy has worked out for us, as on a 
 blackboard, every point in the demonstrations, or so- 
 called miracles of Jesus, showing us how to meet and 
 overcome the one and perform the other.” 
 
 In the Sentinel for May 23, 1901, Mrs. Eddy, her- 
 self, said “Science and Health make it plain to all 
 Christian Scientists that the manhood and womanhood 
 of God have already been revealed through Jesus 
 Christ and Christian Science, His two witnesses.” 
 
 She didn’t quite dare say, “through Jesus Christ 
 and Mary Ann Morse Baker Glover Patterson Eddy.” 
 But, if what she said meant anything, it meant just 
 that. The pretension that Mrs. Eddy was the equal of 
 Jesus, in other words, that Jesus was the equal of Mrs. 
 Eddy, is, from the Christian standpoint, the greatest 
 sacrilege ever perpetrated. 
 
 “The absurdity the human race can’t swallow hasn’t 
 been invented yet.” The twentieth century seems to 
 be an age of especially easy belief. We are compelled 
 to believe that nothing inventable is beyond belief. Mr. 
 Bok offers a hundred thousand dollars for a plan for 
 world-peace; the plan is forthcoming and Mr. Bok 
 pays. But what prize could call forth an unbelievable 
 absurdity? It can’t be invented. Christian Science 
 proves it can’t; for nothing can be more extravagantly 
 absurd than Christian Science, and Christian Science 
 has its hundred thousand believers. 
 
 The great Frenchman, Mirabeau, who was very fat, | 
 
CASH 295 
 
 once facetiously remarked that his mission in life ap- 
 peared to be to test the elasticity of the human skin. 
 
 If Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science has any mission, 
 other than to humble our pride of intellect, is it not to 
 test, in the most impressive possible way, the elasticity 
 of human credulity? 
 
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PART III 
 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
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 CHARLES E. Humiston, M.D., Sc.D. 
 
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I 
 
 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE—A MEDICAL PARASITE 
 
 which a certain cult carries on its business of 
 
 treating human ailments. The principal asset 
 "of this business is deceit. Its principal field of activity 
 is among those who are financially prosperous. 
 
 In any community, the adherents of this cult will be 
 found to consist largely of pronounced suggestibles, 
 augmented by a not inconsiderable number who seek a 
 substitute for prevailing religion. 
 
 Scientific medicine is in no wise opposed to religious 
 freedom, but scientific medicine takes cognizance of the 
 fact that all down the ages, quack-medicine and quack- 
 religion have every now and again been linked together 
 in unholy alliance for the ulterior purpose of plundering 
 the sick. 
 
 Christian Science claims to be a system of healing, 
 which makes of it a medical question. Mrs. Eddy’s 
 Massachusetts Metaphysical College was chartered for 
 medical purposes. 
 
 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is 
 announced to the world as the “ Original, standard, and 
 only text-book on Christian Science Mind-Healing.” 
 
 The “ Key ” part is limited to Genesis and Revela- 
 tion,—two only of the sixty-six books of the Bible. 
 Divine healing as a business is the rest of this seven 
 hundred-page book. 
 
 The real meat of Christian Science healing can be 
 
 299 
 
 Orr SCIENCE is the trade name under 
 
300 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 compressed into three magic words: MIND IS ALL. 
 When the variations on this theme are played, forward 
 and backward, the converse with its variations served 
 up, the concert is over. Seven hundred pages of 
 repetition of this fundamental proposition make up 
 the “context” of Science and Health. ‘This sys- 
 tem of healing, mathematically considered, may be 
 looked upon as the process of raising its basic state- 
 ment to the nth power. The permeation, saturation 
 and overwhelming of the patient with this sovereign 
 cure-all is Christian Science treatment of human 
 ailments. 
 
 Christian Science is not anything new, not even in 
 its trade-name. Mrs. Eddy is by no means the first 
 “healer ” with a mission to make name, fame and for- 
 tune out of the credulity of suffering humanity. The 
 oldest written records in existence show recognition of 
 attempts to practice the art of healing, and the impostor 
 has been active equally as long. The temple-healers of 
 Egypt made their appeal to the same phase of human 
 intelligence, or lack of it, as do the present-day healers 
 of the type of Mrs. Eddy. Medical parasites have 
 flourished in all ages and never more successfully than 
 now. Primitive tribes regard their imbeciles, idiots and 
 epileptics with awe, and oftentimes worship them. 
 What shall we say of our present-day civilisation, our 
 boasted popular education, our vaunted freedom from 
 superstition as we witness the triumph of the imbecility 
 of a religious paranoiac over the minds of educated(?) 
 people! 
 
 From the medical standpoint, Christian Science is 
 but one of a group of medical parasites, and, as such, 
 exhibits many of the characteristics common to these 
 more or less evanescent parasitic appendages to the 
 
A MEDICAL PARASITE 301 
 
 practice of medicine. These parasites uniformly admit 
 that they are engaged in the practice of medicine, that 
 is, dealing with human ailments, real or imaginary. 
 There is no other explanation to their insistent demand 
 for recognition in the laws governing the practice of 
 medicine. Of course, no Christian Science practitioner 
 will openly make such a damaging confession to a 
 prospective patient. This obvious fact is treated as 
 a trade secret. 
 
 A second particular in which there is harmony of 
 policy, is defiant refusal to submit to the equal applica- 
 tion of the laws designed to regulate the vocation in 
 which they are engaged. There are no exceptions in 
 this respect. 
 
 A third point on which Christian Science vocifer- 
 ously agrees with others of the parasitic group, is utter 
 unwillingness to comply with the educational pre- 
 requisites which the law and good sense say should 
 safeguard the public against incompetence in dealing 
 with human life. 
 
 A fourth point of similarity is found in the admission 
 that there are some conditions, generally of a surgical 
 nature, to which their form of treatment is not well © 
 suited. On this point, however, they are not very 
 vociferous. 
 
 A fifth disingenuous characteristic is one which like- 
 wise applies to the whole parasite family—they dislike 
 to have their host, the public, object to any of their 
 habits. They resent being disturbed while feeding. 
 The public, through its accredited representatives, has 
 declared that the treatment of human ailments by any 
 method whatsoever, is a business commonly known as 
 the practice of medicine. Christian Science is thus 
 logically looked for in the medical laws, and in more 
 
802 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 than half the states of the Union it will be found there, 
 safely nestled in the section on exemptions. 
 
 Let it be confessed with shame that the United 
 States is the only civilised nation on the face of the 
 earth that gives legal sanction to the exploitation of its 
 sick. One searches in vain through the medical laws 
 of the nations of the earth sufficiently advanced to have 
 written laws, for any parallel to the desecration of med- 
 ical law that prevails in our own United States of 
 America. Profiteering religio-medical parasites exist 
 in other countries, but their depredations upon society 
 are not there given the sanction and protection of law. 
 
 The present generation is being canvassed by the 
 ‘medical underworld more diligently and more success- 
 fully than any former one. The messages of fake heal- 
 ers burden every avenue of publicity. Newspapers, 
 ‘magazines, billboards flame out with false and mislead- 
 ‘ing claims of marvelous power to relieve every ill to 
 which human flesh is heir. Radio-broadcasting stations 
 are maintained for the exclusive purpose of dinning 
 into susceptible ears the blatant mouthings of quack- 
 ery. The commercial aphorism, “ it pays to advertise,” 
 is nowhere better appreciated than by those who gam- 
 ble away human life. Mystery and superstition sway 
 mankind as effectually now, as at any time in the 
 world’s history. Early modern times saw “ Greatrakes 
 the Stroker ” armed with a commission from the Holy 
 Ghost and reinforced by a few well-placed dreams, 
 “heal”? multitudes in Ireland and England. Within 
 the memory of people now living, the “ Seer of Pough- 
 keepsie—Andrew Jackson Davis ”—a sort of twin re- 
 incarnation of Galen and Swedenborg supplemented 
 by a suitable amount of “ divine revelation,” after a 
 remarkable run of business as a healer, wrote and 
 
A MEDICAL PARASITE 303 
 
 marketed an eight-hundred page book entitled The 
 Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations and a 
 Voice to Mankind. This book reached thirty-four 
 editions. 
 
 Immediately following the collapse of this monu- 
 mental medical fake the “ discoverer” of Christian 
 Science came on the scene, to be joined shortly by the 
 second appearance of the prophet Elijah, playing a 
 return engagement under the name of John Alexander 
 Dowie. Small wonder that a ‘“ Mother God ” finds a 
 huge waiting list of susceptibles ready to acclaim one 
 who modestly admits identity with God in “ quality if 
 not quantity,”’ equal if not so bulky. 
 
 Implanted in every living creature is an insistent 
 desire to live. Preservation of health is conservation 
 of life itself. The medical profession is enlisted in the 
 war upon disease and death. Any and every cry of 
 human suffering is its call to arms. Christian Science, 
 in the field of treatment of human ailments, is a menace 
 to society. The untreated surgical condition, the un- 
 recognised or concealed communicable disease, the 
 resistance to measures of sanitation, the total disregard 
 of disease prevention are as much to be regarded as 
 enemies to human health and life as are scourge and 
 pestilence, and as much to be opposed by that profes- 
 sion which is consecrated to the health and happiness 
 of mankind. The degree of the medical profession’s 
 devotion to the ideals of the healing art is the measure 
 of its abhorrence of an impostor; and in the field of 
 medicine, Christian Science is a rank impostor. 
 
 Does the normal individual recoil from the heart- 
 rending picture of a little child in the final stage of 
 untreated diphtheria progressively and surely choking 
 to death, every breath a struggle, bulging eyes staring 
 
804 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 from out a livid countenance, arms outstretched in 
 helpless appeal to mother, to father, and these natural 
 protectors of their own offspring with vacuous stare 
 and unsympathetic mien merely mumbling the sense- 
 less jargon of Science and Health? Diphtheria can 
 certainly be prevented. It can, almost certainly, be 
 cured. Is it not manslaughter to withhold certain 
 cure? Whoever is opposed to manslaughter is stupidly 
 inconsistent if he be not likewise opposed to the Chris- 
 tian Science treatment of diphtheria. Let those who 
 will, stand idly by, spineless witnesses to the sacrifice 
 of the lives of little children upon the altar of fanati- 
 cism and sordid greed. A profession dedicated to the 
 saving of human lives is naturally, automatically and 
 fundamentally opposed to Christian Science. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy says: ‘‘ Christian Science is more safe 
 and potent than any other sanitary method.” 
 
 During the World War, the sanitary and preventive 
 measures employed in the American Army resulted in 
 a typhoid incidence of but five to one hundred thou- 
 sand. The prevalence of typhoid fever in the Union 
 Army during the Civil War was four hundred times as 
 great. Christian Scientists protested the use of these 
 very efficient life-saving measures. When Christian 
 Science says: “ The blood, heart, lungs, brain, have 
 nothing to do with life ” it, at once, comes into conflict 
 with medical science. If the statement were made that 
 brain has nothing to do with Christian Science, there 
 might be less ground for controversy. Viewed med- 
 ically, Christian Science is a mental disorder with a 
 . high mortality. It is the confederate of contagion and 
 the ally of disease, the antithesis of reason and common 
 sense in everything pertaining to the health and well- 
 being of the human body. The founder of Christian 
 
A MEDICAL PARASITE 305 
 
 Science teaches the abolition of marriage, yet illus- 
 trates progressive polygamy. She condemns the physi- 
 cian, yet calls in the dentist and the surgeon. All the 
 time and everywhere inconsistency and contradiction 
 which would be amusing but for the tragedy of it—the 
 useless, senseless, cruel and inexcusable sacrifice of 
 human life. 
 
 The “ cures ” of Christian Science do not justify this 
 cult’s engaging in the business of treating human ail- 
 ments. The ailments that are remedied by this form 
 of treatment have a mortality rate of almost zero, when 
 given no treatment whatever, and are equally well 
 ‘treated ” by any of the methods common to the suc- 
 cessful quack, namely, a display of unbounded self- 
 confidence, awe-inspiring boasts, unblushing lying, 
 coupled with that skill in playing upon the credulity of 
 human nature that characterises the “ inspired leader ” 
 tinged with a mental twist. 
 
 The harm of Christian Science lies in its profoundly 
 obtuse inability to discriminate between real and imagi- 
 nary disease. If Christian Science confined its efforts 
 to pandering to that somewhat numerous class who 
 enjoy poor health and whose greatest happiness is at- 
 tained in discoursing upon the baifling and unusual ail- 
 ments with which they have been favoured for ever and 
 ever so long a time, then, sane and wholesome medicine 
 would show only amused interest. But the tragedy of 
 Christian Science lies in its arrogant and pernicious 
 activity in undertaking the management of that great 
 group of diseases wherein favourable outcome can con- 
 fidently be expected to follow the timely use of proper 
 medical or surgical treatment, but which through reli- 
 ance upon Christian Science is doomed to certain 
 disaster, 
 
806 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 The less people have the matter with them, the better 
 they are suited to Christian Science, which is in reality 
 doing nothing with the greatest formality. The vanish- 
 ing point of the usefulness of Christian Science is 
 rapidly reached as approach is made toward real and 
 Serious diseases, and especially those of an organic 
 nature. Here the vicious side of this colossal delusion 
 stalks forth to titter in the face of human misery and 
 to offer its obstructive tactics and forces to the use of 
 the only effective treatment known. Thus is diph- 
 theria aided in choking out the lives of helpless, inno- 
 cent little children; cancer protected in its spread to 
 hopeless involvement of distant tissues; strangulated 
 hernia insured to produce gangrene and rupture of 
 viscera with inevitable death from peritonitis; the 
 diabetic led to indiscretions of diet that precipitate 
 fatal coma; the consumptive ordered to undertake 
 vigourous muscular exertion with consequent disas- 
 trous hemorrhage; the mortality rate of appendicitis 
 stupidly multiplied; the diseased heart-muscle over- 
 taxed with ill-advised exercise, and the unfortunate 
 sufferer goaded to involuntary suicide; scarlet fever 
 scattered broadcast; typhoid fever and smallpox en- 
 couraged, and all other communicable diseases pro- 
 vided with the very conditions most favourable for 
 their spread. All this forced upon a suffering public 
 by the most efficient organisation of religio-medical 
 parasites that ever feasted with gluttonous appetite 
 upon the credulity of mankind. 
 
IT 
 DECEIT 
 
 HE most elementary rules of proof demand that 
 witnesses be truthful, unprejudiced, and pos- 
 sessed of some degree of real knowledge of the 
 
 matter under consideration. If there is to be a reason- 
 ably just estimation of the value of Christian Science 
 as a method of treating human ailments, the simple 
 rules of evidence must be applied. It must be shown 
 that the witnesses are telling the truth, the whole truth 
 and nothing but the truth. It must be ascertained 
 whether or not the advocates of Christian Science are 
 in any way prejudiced. And further, it must be demon- 
 strated that those who undertake to treat human ail- 
 ments by this method have sufficient knowledge of the 
 human body in health and in disease to enable them to 
 recognise disease when it is present, and to decide when 
 a diseased condition is healed. 
 
 Since the “testimonials of healing” are all from 
 Christian Science sources, we can examine all of the 
 witnesses at one time by an examination of the whole 
 of Christian Science as set forth in Science and Health 
 with Key to the Scriptures, the “ original, standard, 
 and only text-book on Christian Science Mind Heal: 
 ing.” We must regard the “ testimonials of healing ”’ 
 as coming from consistent Christian Scientists. No 
 one should complain of the fairness of this course. If 
 a Christian Scientist claims to have been healed of 
 some bodily ailment, it is both logical and fair to ascer- 
 
 307 
 
308 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 tain just what that particular bodily ailment means to 
 a consistent Christian Scientist. 
 
 Fortunately, every facility needed for such an inves- 
 tigation has been placed at our disposal by Mrs. Eddy 
 herself. In Science and Health we have been provided 
 with the last word on the subject of Christian Science 
 Mind Healing. The whole copyrighted story is ours 
 for the sum of three dollars. Whatever Mrs. Eddy 
 commands her followers to say, that they say. What- 
 ever Mrs. Eddy tells her followers to do, that they do. 
 What her followers are directed to say and do can be 
 definitely established by consulting the text-book, 
 Science and Health. On the authority of Mrs. Eddy, 
 by the authority of Mrs. Eddy, we shall undertake to 
 establish that the followers of Mrs. Eddy in their “ tes- 
 timonials of healing,” to normal individuals, are neces- 
 sarily preposterous and fatuous. This will be shown 
 by quotations from the last edition of Science and 
 Health, which every consistent Christian Scientist be- 
 lieves to be perfect. 
 
 Truth as sincerity and genuineness in expressing 
 feeling or belief is not “‘ Christian Science truth.” Mrs. 
 Eddy assigns a meaning to “truth ” which cannot be 
 found anywhere else. ‘‘ Truth” in Science and Health 
 has very little in common with veracity, verity or veri- 
 simWitude. However, let us stick to truth as defined 
 and understood by those who possess common honesty, 
 common sense and sound judgment; otherwise, at- 
 tempting to evaluate testimony will be a waste of time 
 and effort. 
 
 “Evidence drawn from the five physical senses re- 
 lates solely to human reason.” (Page 117, line 24.) 
 “Science reversing the testimony of the physical 
 senses.” (P. 120, 1. 20.) “Is a man sick if the ma- 
 
DECEIT 309 
 
 terial senses indicate that he is in good health? No. 
 And is he well if the senses say he is sick? Yes.” 
 (120-12) “Science denies all disease.” (120-23) At 
 the very outset our witness is demonstrating self- 
 contradiction. A man is not sick if his senses fail to 
 indicate any bodily ailment. A man is not sick even if 
 his senses reveal that he is sick. Going or coming, man 
 is not sick. ‘The term Christian Science was intro- 
 duced by the author to designate the scientific system 
 of divine healing.” (123-16) 
 
 Since under no conditions is a man sick, under no 
 conditions can a man have any use for a “‘ system of 
 healing.” Here is a “system of healing ” discovered 
 by Mrs. Eddy, who declares: ‘No human pen nor 
 tongue taught me the Science contained in this book— 
 Science and Health,’ and on the same authority this 
 system of healing has no ailment to heal. Having no 
 work to do, Christian Science must be engaged in doing 
 nothing. ‘‘ The Bible was my only text-book ” (110- 
 14), says Mrs. Eddy, yet the Bible recognises sickness: 
 “And Jesus answering said unto them, they that are 
 whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.” 
 (Luke 5: 31.) 
 
 If there is no such thing as sickness, there is no need 
 of Christian Science. If there is nothing to do in the 
 healing line, in reality Christian Science is not doing 
 any real healing; in short, Christian Science is doing 
 nothing. Christian Science is doing nothing with great 
 formality. 
 
 “The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing 
 to do with life.” (151-18) Diseases of the blood, heart 
 disease, consumption of the lungs, insanity, or other 
 impairment of brain function are thus entitled to no 
 consideration whatsoever from the Christian Scientist. 
 
810 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 What of a witness who claims to cure or heal something 
 which the patient never did and never could have? 
 “You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible.” 
 (153-16) Dear Reader: Did you ever have a boil? 
 Are you now convinced that it was painless? The 
 truthfulness of Christian Science is as evident as the 
 joy of a boil, and as conclusively proved as that “ the 
 blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with 
 life.’ We begin to doubt the credibility of Christian 
 Science as a witness. 
 
 Do the statements concerning the curing of con- 
 sumption in its last stages, and the healing of “ incur- 
 able’ spinal disease, stand up under investigation? 
 Are destroyed portions of the central nervous system 
 actually restored? Are these testimonies of healing 
 coming from sources where the evidences of the senses 
 are wholly disregarded? Do these witnesses believe 
 that the kidneys they possess are altogether imaginary? 
 Can these witnesses deny the evidences of their senses 
 in the face of an accident which mangles the body of a 
 child and without feeling of sympathy tell the dis- 
 tracted mother to say: “Oh, never mind! You’re not 
 hurt, so don’t think you are” ? (154-33) Is their an- 
 swer to suffering on every and all occasions: “‘ You are 
 mistaken” ?. Do these witnesses honestly believe that, 
 “‘ Christian Science heals organic disease as surely as it 
 heals what is called functional” ? (162-25) Do the 
 witnesses who have furnished the testimonials of Chris- 
 tian Science really believe “ If you or I should appear 
 to die, we should not be dead” ? (164-17) Do they 
 think Mrs. Eddy is still living? Does Christian Science 
 teach that the five senses can never be believed? What 
 regard for truth and veracity can be expected of such 
 prejudiced witnesses? 
 
DECEIT 311 
 
 Are the testimonials of healing coming from wit- 
 nesses who have an understanding of the human body 
 in health and in disease? If not, of what value is such 
 testimony? Do Christian Scientists make diagnoses? 
 Of course not. Knowing nothing of anatomy or path- 
 ology, diagnosis of any diseased condition is impossible, 
 besides, ‘‘ The ordinary practitioner examining bodily 
 symptoms, telling the patient that he is sick, and treat- 
 ing the case according to his physical diagnosis, would 
 naturally induce the very disease he is trying to cure.” 
 (161-24) 
 
 “‘ A physical diagnosis of disease—since mortal mind 
 must be the cause of disease—tends to induce disease.” 
 (370-20) ‘“‘ Realise that the evidence of the senses is 
 not to be accepted in the case of sickness.” (386-1) 
 
 Since Christian Science does not make a diagnosis— 
 dare not make a diagnosis—does not know how to 
 make a diagnosis—is afraid to listen to a diagnosis—is 
 powerless if it concedes a diagnosis—what of the list 
 of diseases in the “ testimonials of healing” ? If the 
 evidences of the senses is not to be accepted, what kind 
 or character of evidence is to be accepted? ‘“‘ Know 
 that in Science you cannot check a fever after admit- 
 ting that it must have its course. To fear and admit 
 the power of disease, is to paralyse mental and scien- 
 tific demonstration.” (376-29) 
 
 “¢ Admit the common hypothesis that food is the nu- 
 triment of life, and there follows the necessity for 
 another admission in the opposite direction—that food 
 has power to destroy life, God, through a deficiency or 
 an excess, a quality or a quantity.”’ (388-12) ‘A case 
 of convulsions, produced by indigestion, came under 
 my observation. In her belief the woman had chronic 
 liver complaint, and was then suffering from a compli- 
 
312 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 cation of symptoms connected with this belief. I cured 
 her in a few minutes.” (389-28) Here we have a 
 “testimonial of healing” from Mrs. Eddy herself. 
 Having just declared that any. admission that food is 
 nourishing entails the danger of destroying God; on the 
 very next page the discoverer of Christian Science in- 
 vites God’s destruction by observing “a case of con- 
 vulsions produced by indigestion.” Getting rid of a 
 case of indigestion and incidentally rescuing God from 
 destruction was a highly important and extraordina- 
 rily valuable piece of work, and accomplished in a 
 few minutes, too. 
 
 “Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and 
 supremacy of mind it is better for Christian Scientists 
 to leave surgery and the adjustment of broken bones 
 and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while the 
 mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental recon- 
 struction and to the prevention of inflammation. 
 Christian Science is always the most skillful surgeon, 
 but surgery is the branch of healing which will be last 
 acknowledged.” (401-27) 
 
 The reason for this suicidal confession of failure on 
 the part of Christian Science will become increasingly 
 obvious a little farther on in this book. 
 
 “Discard all notions about lungs, tubercles, inher- 
 ited consumption, or disease arising from any circum- 
 stance, and you will find that mortal mind, when in- 
 structed by Truth, yields to divine power, which steers 
 the body into health.” (425-32) Thus does Christian 
 Science cure consumption, steering the body into health 
 —steering a new lung into the body when “ one lung 
 is gone.” 
 
 “Man is the same after as before a bone is broken 
 or the body guillotined.” (427-16) 
 
DECEIT 313 
 
 “The author has healed hopeless organic disease, 
 and raised the dying to life and health.” (428-30) 
 
 Christian Science has no use for any knowledge of 
 the human body in health nor in disease. ‘‘ Treatises 
 on anatomy, physiology and health, sustained by what 
 is termed material law, are the promoters of sickness 
 and disease.” (179-21) ‘“* Many a hopeless case of 
 disease is induced by a single post mortem examination 
 —not from infection nor from contact with material 
 virus, but from the image brought before the mind; it 
 is a mental state, which is afterward outlined on the 
 body.” (196-25) 
 
 A post-mortem examination is something terrifying 
 to Christian Scientists. ‘This quotation from their 
 text-book is not the full explanation. An autopsy in- 
 variably administers a merciless jolt to the easy going 
 of divine healing. It is a distinct business reverse 
 fraught with disastrous possibilities. Gouging the next 
 victim becomes more difficult. (This use of the word 
 ““ gouge ”’ is said to be colloquial in the United States. 
 Since Eddyism was “ discovered” in this country, 
 ““ souging ” cannot be said to be foreign to Christian — 
 Science.) Argument is not needed to establish that 
 Christian Science knows nothing of anatomy, physi- 
 ology, pathology, hygiene or that it does not attempt 
 to recognise the character or extent of any disease. 
 
 Every Christian Scientist hastens to disclaim all 
 knowledge along this line. ‘“‘ You may call the disease 
 by name when you mentally deny it; but by naming it 
 audibly, you are liable under some circumstances to 
 impress it upon the thought.” (412-10) Thus Chris- 
 tion Science practice does not permit physical examina- 
 tion and diagnosis, and cautions against using names 
 of diseases. 
 
3814 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Soap and water do not stand very high in Christian 
 Science. ‘‘ The daily ablutions of an infant are no 
 more natural nor necessary than would be the process 
 of taking a fish out of water every day and covering it 
 with dirt in order to make it thrive more vigourously 
 in its own element.” (413-12) ‘‘ The less we know or 
 think about hygiene, the less we are predisposed to 
 sickness.” (389-5) 
 
 “‘ Testimonials of healing ”’ from persons whose fidel- 
 ity to the truth has so far deserted them as to sanction 
 such statements as appear on every page of Science and 
 Health, denying the existence of organs such as the 
 lungs, can hardly be believed when they affirm that a 
 lung is entirely destroyed, nor yet when they assert 
 that the destroyed lung is restored. Persons who have 
 become convinced that they no longer are possessed of 
 livers or brains, can scarcely qualify as unprejudiced 
 on the subject of liver or brain disease. 
 
 Christian Science pleads guilty to the charge of total 
 ignorance of every form of real disease. Mrs. Eddy 
 was at one time somewhat of a homeopath, evidently 
 a dispenser of diluted medicine. ‘‘ The author has at- 
 tenuated natrium muriaticum (common table salt) 
 until there was not a single saline property left. The 
 salt had ‘lost his savour’; and yet with one drop of 
 that attenuation in a goblet of water, and a teaspoonful 
 of water administered at intervals of three hours, she 
 has cured a patient sinking in the last stages of typhoid 
 fever. The highest attenuation of homeopathy and the 
 most potent rises above matter into mind.” (153-5) 
 
 ‘“‘ A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into 
 my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been 
 employed, and yet, as she lay in her bed, the patient 
 looked like a barrel. I prescribed the fourth attenu- 
 
DECEIT 315 
 
 ation of argentum nitratum with occasional doses of a 
 high attenuation of sulphuris. She improved percept- 
 ibly.. Believing then somewhat in the ordinary theories 
 of medical practice, and learning that her former physi- 
 cian had prescribed these remedies, I began to fear an 
 aggravation of symptoms from their prolonged use, and 
 told the patient so, but she was unwilling to give up the 
 medicine while she was recovering. It then occurred 
 to me to give her unmedicated pellets and watch the 
 result. I did so and she continued to gain. Finally, 
 she said she would give up her medicine for one day, 
 and risk the effects. After trying this, she informed 
 me that she could get along two days without globules, 
 but on the third day she again suffered, and was re- 
 lieved by taking them. She went on in this way, taking 
 the unmedicated pellets, and receiving occasional visits 
 from me, but employing no other means, and she was 
 cured.” 
 
 ‘“‘ Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the 
 next stately step beyond homeopathy.” (156-5) In 
 other words, just beyond next-to-nothing, lies nothing, 
 otherwise ycleped Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy here 
 gives us an account of her success in dealing with 
 typhoid fever and dropsy by homeopathic medication. 
 The typhoid case “‘ sinking in the last stages,’”’ and the 
 dropsy case “‘ given up by the faculty—a terrible case.” 
 
 These case records are decidedly incomplete. ‘“ Ty- 
 phoid fever ” is a diagnosis. ‘‘ Dropsy ” is not. Dropsy 
 is a symptom of not fewer than fifteen diseased con- 
 ditions, and many of these diseased conditions are not 
 even closely related to one another. Was it typhoid 
 fever? The specific cause of typhoid fever was first 
 seen in 1880, long after Mrs. Eddy had demonstrated 
 to her own satisfaction that the only cases of typhoid 
 
316 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 fever to be found anywhere by anybody were wholly 
 imaginary, and that these imaginary cases seemed to 
 exist by virtue of the fact that some erroneous thinking 
 had been done. There is the bare chance that some 
 indiscreet individual may have made a diagnosis of 
 typhoid fever, whereupon by that overt act the disease 
 became fastened upon the unsuspecting patient—not 
 really, of course, only just nearly enough to make a 
 useful illustration that disease can be cured by next to 
 nothing, thus preparing the reader for the “next 
 stately step beyond homeopathy ”—absolutely nothing, 
 or ‘“‘ Metaphysics as taught in Christian Science.” 
 
 Was the condition of “sinking in the last stages ” 
 due to an intestinal hemorrhage, perforation of an ulcer 
 of the bowel, or to toxemia? ‘These conditions are to 
 be feared in typhoid fever. Whatever it was, any 
 physician will agree that diluted common salt did no 
 harm.’ Every physician knows that typhoid fever is a 
 self-limited disease, and that most cases recover even 
 if no medication whatever is resorted to. Every pro- 
 gressive physician also knows that typhoid fever can 
 be prevented. It is likewise a matter of common 
 knowledge that Christian Scientists have resisted to the 
 utmost those sanitary measures which have made 
 typhoid fever little more than a memory in some of 
 the largest cities of America. 
 
 ‘““A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty.” A 
 large share of the “ cures” of Christian Science are of 
 cases “‘ given up ” by the doctors. The testimonials of 
 healing offered by the followers of this “ divine system 
 of healing ” are close imitations of those furnished by 
 Mrs. Eddy in her own writings. The condition is some- 
 thing shocking; the case has been “ given up ” by med- 
 ical practitioners; the disease is incurable, etc. “ It 
 
DECEIT 317 
 
 was a terrible case.”? Case of what? Which one of the 
 fifteen and more diseased conditions which cause 
 dropsy was this one? We may assume the case to have 
 been one of valvular heart disease with broken compen- 
 sation, something common in the experience of every 
 physician. The records of every hospital show a pro- 
 cession of these cases. Coming in with ascites “ look- 
 ing like a barrel,” treated by rest in bed, and being 
 discharged ‘‘ cured” of their dropsy. No physician 
 would attach any importance to the administration of 
 argentum nitratum and sulphuris. Lunar caustic and 
 brimstone have no role in the therapeutics of heart dis- 
 ease, but that does not prove that digitalis is not a life- 
 saving remedy for this numerous class of sufferers. 
 
 “One stately step beyond homeopathy.” This 
 “stately step ” has been the final, fatal step for many 
 a sufferer from cardiac insufficiency, beguiled into a 
 feeling of complacent security through poring over the 
 pages of Science and Health and accepting as truth its 
 bastard philosophy of the nothingness of matter. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy’s prejudice against the medical profession 
 stands out as a cardinal feature of Science and Health. 
 Such expressions as the following abound: “ Ignorant 
 of the fact that a man’s belief produces disease and all 
 its symptoms, the ordinary physician is liable to in- 
 crease disease with his own mind.” (159-30) ‘ The 
 ordinary practitioner, examining the bodily symptoms, 
 telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case 
 according to his physical diagnosis, would naturally 
 induce the very disease he is trying to cure.” (161-24) 
 “The seeming disease, caused by a majority of human 
 beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental 
 assassins, does not in the least disprove Christian 
 Science.” (164-18) The medical profession being 
 
3818 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 naturally more than any other class given to thought 
 and consideration of sickness and disease are thus 
 necessarily the most guilty of all mental assassins. 
 
 “‘ Christian Science rises above the evidence of the 
 corporeal senses.” (448-12) ‘“ You do not deny the 
 mathematician’s right to distinguish the correct from 
 the incorrect among the examples on the blackboard, 
 nor disbelieve the musician when he distinguishes con- 
 cord from discord. In like manner it should be granted 
 that the author understands what she is saying.” 
 (452-32) The mathematician and the musician, why 
 not the physician? 
 
 ‘“‘A Christian Scientist never recommends material 
 hygiene.” (453-30) ‘‘ Man is not matter; he is not 
 made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material ele- 
 ments.” (475-6) ‘“‘ Christian Science reveals man as 
 the idea of God, and declares the corporeal senses to 
 be mortal and erring illusions.” (477-11) 
 
 No consistent Christian Scientist believes the evi- 
 dence of his senses. Eyes see not. Ears hear not. 
 Nerves feel not. A nose smells not. A tongue tastes 
 not. What a Christian Scientist sees, feels, tastes, 
 hears, or smells, he knows to be false and untrue. 
 What a witness to testify to the healing of human ail- 
 ments—“ so-called ” ailments! Where, indeed, is there 
 a court that would accept such “testimony ” as evi- 
 dence? However, before passing on the credibility of 
 those who furnish the “ testimonials of healing,” con- 
 sider the following remarkable instruction which Mrs. 
 Eddy gives to her followers when they find themselves 
 beaten so decisively that anybody and everybody 
 recognises it. } 
 
 In the closing sentences of the chapter on Teaching 
 Christian Science, this apostle of “‘ Truth ” unblush- 
 
DECEIT 319 
 
 ingly counsels deceit, duplicity and dishonesty. ‘If 
 from an injury or from any cause, a Christian Scientist 
 was seized with pain so violent that he could not treat 
 himself mentally, and the Scientists had failed to re- 
 lieve him, the sufferer could call a surgeon, who would 
 give him a hypodermic injection. Then, when the 
 belief of pain was lulled, he could handle his own case 
 mentally. Thus it is that we prove all things; (and) 
 hold fast that which is good.” (464-13) 
 
 The spectacle of Christian Science in panic-stricken 
 flight before a pain which is readily vanquished by an 
 ordinary physician with a hypodermic injection must 
 be anything but inspiring to the followers of a 
 “Mother-God.” The situation must be salvaged. 
 ** All-in-all” is ‘“‘down-and-out.” “Error” is tri- 
 umphant—but no, the doctor only seemed to “lull” 
 the pain; the cure was due to the mental treatment 
 which was administered after the pain was gone. Why 
 was the doctor called? What was the surgeon doing 
 there? What a stupid question! The doctor was there 
 for the purpose of “ giving up ” the case. For is it not 
 true, that the greatest cures of Christian Science are 
 those of hopeless and incurable diseases which doctors 
 have “ given up” ? 
 
 The brazen trickery of Christian Scientists in claim- 
 ing all the credit for the recovery of patients who have 
 escaped the ministrations of the undertaker only 
 through the skill and knowledge of regular physicians 
 is a constant, conspicuous characteristic of the mem- 
 bers of this cult, 
 
 After an experience of this kind, the Christan 
 Science patient emerges either cured af his Christian 
 Science or shorn of every vestige of dependability as to 
 his truth and veracity concerning the whole matter. If 
 
320 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 the reader wishes confirmation of this indictment, let 
 him listen in on any Christian Science Wednesday 
 evening meeting, where the faithful are wont to gather 
 to out-testify one another. 
 
 “Why support the popular systems of medicine 
 when the physician may perchance be an infidel and 
 may lose ninety and nine patients, while Christian 
 Science cures its hundred’? (344-26) One per cent. 
 against one hundred per cent. does seem like illogical 
 odds; still there are times when a hypodermic comes in 
 mighty handy. ‘ But in this volume of mine there are 
 no contradictory statements—at least none which are 
 apparent to those who understand its propositions well 
 enough to pass judgment upon them.” (345-15) 
 
 How wonderful! Divine Science reduced to the dire 
 extremity of brazen falsehood, resorting to the often- 
 needed and much-overworked explanation(?), ‘ You 
 do not understand! ” 
 
 Christian Science offers its “ proofs,” and for their 
 understanding lays down the following condition: 
 ‘“*One who understands Christian Science can heal the 
 sick on the divine Principle of Christian Science, and 
 this practical proof is the only feasible evidence that 
 one does understand this Science.” (345-17) Every 
 successful physician in the civilised world can qualify 
 under this condition. They excel in numbers the com- 
 bined membership of the Christian Science churches. 
 In explaining how a dose of poison kills even when 
 swallowed by mistake, Mrs. Eddy confesses by the 
 majority of opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority 
 of opinions in the sick chamber. (178-5). The major- 
 ity of opinions of medical men, outnumbering as they 
 do the whole of the Christian Science tribe, declare that 
 the therapeutic methods of Christian Scientists were 
 
 ee 
 
DECEIT 821 
 
 known and understood and used by the medical pro- 
 fession for centuries before Mrs. Eddy was born, and 
 that the only new thing in Mrs. Eddy’s Christian 
 Science is its meaningless name, and even that is not 
 original with Mrs. Eddy. Qualified by education; 
 qualified by experience; qualified by common honesty; 
 qualified by professional ideals that place the healing 
 art above its pecuniary emoluments; qualified by a 
 moral standard which spurns the testimony of false- 
 hood, the medical profession sits in judgment on the 
 “proofs ” of healing offered by Christian Science. 
 
 With full knowledge of the qualifications of the wit- 
 nesses, of their ignorance of the human body in health 
 and in disease, of their fanatical prejudice, of their 
 duplicity in openly claiming to have cured patients 
 who owe their recovery to regular physicians, let us 
 attempt to evaluate the “proofs” contained in the 
 Testimonials of Healing—‘ proofs”? made up of the 
 testimony of witnesses whose handicap is such that 
 they could not tell the truth if they would, and whose 
 teaching has been such that they would not tell the 
 truth if they could. However, let us proceed to weigh 
 the testimony. 
 
III 
 
 THE “ CURES ” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 found in Science and Health under the caption 
 
 Fruitage, is necessary in order to enable one to 
 understand the class and character of diseased condi- 
 tions which are offered as “proofs” of the healing 
 power of Mrs. Eddy’s “ discovery.” 
 
 First of all, one notes the fairly uniform structure of 
 the testimonials as they appear on the pages of the 
 “little book.” Three prominent characteristics stand 
 forth in a typical testimonial, namely: 1. How Chris- 
 tian Science came into the sufferer’s life and healed 
 him. 2. An account of the conditions claimed to have 
 been healed. 3. Adoration of Mother Eddy. 
 
 The uniformly good English, which characterises all 
 these letters here republished from The Christian 
 Science Journal and The Christian Science Sentinel, 
 shows the effect of careful editing and rewriting. It 
 may be assumed that, from the standpoint of Christian 
 Scientists, these testimonials are entirely satisfactory 
 in form and substance. 
 
 Many of the testimonials name the diseases alleged 
 to have been healed. Others name symptoms only, 
 while a goodly number enumerate bad habits, violent 
 temper, lack of business honesty, infidelity, and other 
 characteristics of immoral persons. One sees little evi- 
 dence of diagnoses as made by physicians in the lan- 
 guage and presentation of these cases, though it is 
 
 322 
 
 Cem scrutiny of the Testimonies of Healing, 
 
THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3828 
 
 averred time and again that the highest medical talent 
 and the best known specialists have “ given up” the 
 sufferers to die; in fact, this occurs so frequently that 
 “‘ given up by doctors ” is almost entitled to be named 
 as a fourth constant feature of a typical Christian 
 Science testimonial. The very obvious desire to have 
 it understood that something worth while was accom- 
 plished, readily accounts for the numerous instances of 
 the healing of incurable conditions of disease. In a 
 certain sense these testimonials are competitive, and it 
 is hardly in keeping with human nature to tell a poorer 
 story than the one just listened to. Of course, it will 
 be pointed out that these testimonials are entirely di- 
 vested of all semblance of things “ human” and,— 
 well, perhaps they are, but the readers of this book are 
 assumed to be really human beings, possessed of com- 
 mon sense and sound judgment. 
 
 The eighty-four testimonials published as a part of 
 the Text-book, enumerate as “ reformed and healed ”’ 
 about three times that number of “ mortal errors.” 
 Without being in the least pedantic, and making due 
 allowance for the lack of technical medical knowledge 
 on the part of those who assert that they were healed, 
 let us examine the record. 
 
 Those who were only reformed of immorality do not 
 interest us here, except that it would be helpful to know 
 whether or not those who confessed to dishonesty were 
 wholly cured in this respect. Corroborating testimony © 
 on this point is not offered, and it may be said in pass- 
 ing that Christian Science “cures” are uniformly 
 uncorroborated. 
 
 For convenience of analysis, the diseases and syn- 
 dromes named, or suggested, in the eighty-four testi- 
 monials are first abstracted: 
 
824 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 1. P. 600: Rheumatism healed. 
 
 2. P. 601: Astigmatism and hernia healed; chronic 
 constipation; nervous headache. 
 
 3. P. 602: Substance of lungs restored; acute bowel- 
 trouble; bronchitis; sprained ankle. 
 
 4. P. 603: Fibroid tumour healed in a few days. 
 Fibroid tumour of not less than fifty pounds with con- 
 tinuous hemorrhage for eleven years; growth of 
 eighteen years. 
 
 5. P. 604: Insanity and epilepsy healed. Called in- 
 curable by six doctors, dying by one. 
 
 6. P. 605: A case of mental surgery. Fracture of 
 the middle of the humerus cured by ten minutes’ read- 
 ing of * our text-book,” back at work in thirty minutes. 
 Diagnosis confirmed by X-ray after the bone had 
 healed; a slight thickening remained. 
 
 7. P. 607: Cataract quickly cured. Periodical sore 
 eyes, called iritis and cataract by “ many doctors.” 
 Cured by four hours’ reading of Science and Health. 
 
 8. P. 608: Valvular heart-disease healed. Valvular 
 heart-disease with all the accompaniments, such as ex- 
 treme nervousness, weakness, dyspepsia and insomnia. 
 
 9. P. 609: The true physician found. Indigestion 
 and gastritis in the worst form, seventeen years’ stand- 
 ing; asthma for four years; glasses for four years; had 
 swallowed every known medicine. MHealed in two 
 weeks; smoking and drinking habits also cured. 
 
 10. P. 610: Cancer and consumption healed. In- 
 ternal cancer and consumption treated by the best 
 physicians in New York, Minneapolis, and Duluth. 
 Given up as incurable. Later had painless childbirth 
 in thirty minutes. 
 
 11. P. 612: A remarkable case. Case pronounced 
 incurable by some of the best physicians in Boston; 
 
THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 325 
 
 child hovering between life and death; gastric catarrh, 
 rickets, not a natural bone in his body. Would lie in 
 spasms for half a day. Travelled on the car for two 
 weeks, and we were the only ones in our car who 
 throughout the journey did not get train sick. Child 
 grew up healthy in every way. Mother cured of the 
 need of glasses. Facial blemishes removed, teeth 
 restored. 
 
 12. P. 614: Intense suffering overcome. Sciatic 
 rheumatism for three years; had hypodermic injec- 
 tions. A physician said an operation was necessary, 
 scraping the sciatic nerve. Another physician claimed 
 liable to pass on from weak heart. Completely cured 
 in three days by reading Science and Healih. 
 
 13. P. 615: Healed of rheumatism and Bright’s dis- 
 ease. “I did not expect to live very long. I did not 
 ‘go to the meetings, nor did I read Science and Health 
 to be cured—not thinking of that—but to be saved 
 from an everlasting hell hereafter.” 
 
 14. P. 616: Grateful for many blessings. Hopeless 
 invalid for seven years; painful back from operation; 
 could not lie down; had to sit propped in a chair with 
 pillows. One day while out walking was told of 
 Science and Health. Bought book and read it; healed 
 entirely. 
 
 15. P. 617: Freed from “ neurasthenic ” and other 
 troubles. Pronounced a neurasthenic by a professor 
 of materia medica, whose works are in general use. 
 Had had eleven physicians. Almost all known drugs 
 were prescribed, and many patent medicines. Read 
 Science and Health eleven times straight ahead and 
 many times skipping about. The book did the work 
 and now a well man. 
 
 16. P. 618: Many ills overcome. Muscular rheu- 
 
826 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 matism, dropsy and constipation of thirty years’ stand- 
 ing. Husband cured of tobacco habit and kidney 
 trouble. 
 
 17. P. 619: A helpful healing. Neuralgia of the 
 stomach requiring morphine; severe case of croup in 
 little boy cured almost immediately by reading Science 
 and Health. 
 
 18. P. 620: Relief from many ills. Deafness, 
 catarrh, tonsillitis. 
 
 19. P. 621: Health and peace attained. Treated by 
 eminent physicians for hereditary consumption, torpid 
 liver and many other diseases. 
 
 20. P. 622: Health and peace gained. Asthma, 
 neuralgia in aggravated form, tobacco and _ liquor 
 habits. 
 
 21. P. 623: Consumption quickly cured. What the 
 doctors called consumption in its last stages; was get- 
 ting morphine. Cured by reading Science and Health. 
 Gained forty pounds in three months. 
 
 22. P. 624: A profitable study. Physicians said one 
 lung was gone and the other affected with tuberculosis. 
 I have two healthy lungs now. 
 
 23. P. 626: Healed of infidelity and many physical 
 ills. Treated by leading physicians. Bright’s disease, 
 gravel in the kidneys, acute inflammation of bladder 
 and prostate gland. Cured. 
 
 24. P. 627: Diseased eyes cured. Body completely 
 covered with sores. Eye trouble pronounced incurable 
 by two doctors, one a specialist. A clergyman and a 
 doctor wept at the bedside almost daily. Healed in- 
 stantaneously by Christian Science. 
 
 25. P. 628: The text-book healed me. Under 
 physicians twelve years for abnormal growth. 
 
 26. P. 628; Obstinate stomach trouble healed. 
 
THE “CURES ” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3827 
 
 27. P. 630: Dyspepsia quickly healed. Dyspepsia 
 and constipation. ‘‘I was permanently and I might 
 say instantly healed of these two conditions.” 
 
 28, P. 631: After twenty years’ suffering. Pro- 
 nounced spinal trouble by a physician; healed 
 instantaneously. 
 
 29. P. 633: From despair to hope and joy. Sick 
 from childhood; called incurable by doctors; Bright’s 
 disease in the last stages; prominent specialists knew 
 the case to be extreme; physicians “gave me up.” 
 Perfectly healed by reading the “ little book.” 
 
 30. P. 634: Truth makes free. Catarrh, sore throat, 
 dyspepsia, bronchitis and loss of sixty pounds weight; 
 cured in six weeks. 
 
 31. P. 635: Deaf ears unstopped. Hereditary deaf- 
 ness; catarrh of the head; grew worse despite the 
 efforts of the best specialists of England and America. 
 Cured by less than the first fifty pages of Science and 
 Health. 
 
 32. P. 637: Saved from insanity and suicide. Heart 
 trouble, kidney complaint, headache, female trouble, 
 manifested insanity and tendency to commit suicide. 
 Daughter “‘ given up” to die with lingering consump- 
 tion. Daughter went on three meals a day before the 
 chapter on prayer was finished and was cured by the 
 rest of the book. The mother was cured also. 
 
 33. P. 639: Stomach-trouble healed. 
 
 34. P. 640: Freed from many years of suffering. 
 Stomach-trouble, which defied three good doctors and 
 patent medicines; bladder trouble; rheumatism; grip; 
 cataract on both eyes, and corns. Every remedy 
 “heard of ” and specialists failed. 
 
 35. P. 641: Relief from intense suffering. Danger- 
 ous kidney disease that no medicine could help. 
 
828 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 36. P. 642: Grateful for many blessings. Many 
 physical troubles. 
 
 37. P. 643: Grateful for moral and spiritual awaken- 
 ing. Cured of drinking, smoking and tendency to 
 dishonesty. 
 
 38. P. 645: Hereditary disease of the lungs cured. 
 Hereditary lung trouble; stomach trouble; ovarian 
 trouble; eye trouble certain to end in blindness, 
 
 39. P. 646: Text-book appreciated. After inter- 
 viewing representatives of “‘ over sixty per cent. of the 
 nations of the earth, under their own vine and fig- 
 tree, states ‘what my eyes have seen and my ears 
 heard.’ ” 
 
 40. P. 647: Rupture and other serious ills healed. 
 Rupture; inflammatory rheumatism; catarrh; corns 
 and bunions. 
 
 41. P. 648: Mother and daughter healed. Medicine 
 every day for twenty years for constipation. Treated 
 by doctors and specialists, osteopathy and magnetic 
 treatments, change of climate and operation. 
 
 42. P. 649: Liver complaint healed. Liver spots all 
 over the body. ‘Treated by numerous doctors for two 
 years. Cured when half way through Science and 
 Health. 
 
 43. P. 650: A convincing investigation. Fear of 
 suffering maternally inherited. 
 
 44, P. 652: Deafness and dropsy healed. Deafness; 
 dropsy and consumption. 
 
 45. P. 653: Grateful for many blessings. Head- 
 ache; weakened internal organs; atheism and measles 
 in one day. 
 
 46. P. 655: A joyful experience. Chronic stomach- 
 trouble; severe eye trouble; painful rupture. 
 
 47. P. 655: An ever-present help. Painful eye 
 
THE “CURES ” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3829 
 
 trouble vainly treated by specialists; catarrh, tobacco 
 heart; liquor heart. 
 
 48. P. 657: Severe eye trouble overcome. Need of 
 glasses unrelieved by specialists; certain blindness 
 impending. 
 
 49. P. 658: A testimony from Ireland. Rheuma- 
 tism; debility; chronic constipation; astigmatism. 
 
 50. P. 659: The text-book makes operation un- 
 necessary. Headaches and stomach trouble. 
 
 51. P. 660: Kidney disease and eye trouble healed. 
 
 52. P. 661: Disease of bowels healed. Painful dis- 
 ease which physicians failed to “ diagnose.” 
 
 53. P. 662: Healed by reading the text-book. Kid- 
 ney disease pronounced incurable by specialists. Need 
 of glasses. 
 
 54. P. 662: A testimony from Scotland. Rheuma- 
 tism pronounced incurable by the doctors; colds and 
 weak chest; bilious attacks. 
 
 55. P. 664: Curing better than enduring. Weak 
 lungs; treated and given up by ten doctors in five 
 states; three doctors diagnosed paralysis of the bow- 
 els; constipation. Lungs now sound; bowels normally 
 active. 
 
 56. P. 665: Severe eczema destroyed. Eczema all 
 over the body; given up by five doctors. 
 
 57. P. 666: Science and Health a priceless boon. 
 Paralysis of the bowels which various doctors said 
 was incurable; malignant yellow fever; need of 
 glasses. 
 
 58. P. 666: A critic convinced. A disease since 
 childhood for which there was no known remedy. 
 
 59. P. 667: Born again. Cured of self-conceit; 
 egotism; selfishness. 
 
 60. P. 669: Restless sense of existence destroyed. 
 
38830 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Ulceration of the stomach; agnosticism; doctor said 
 could live but a short time. 
 
 61. P. 670: Morally and physically healed. Rheu- 
 matism of mother; weak eyes; need of glasses; con- 
 genital disease; profanity; temper; tobacco habit; 
 malice, revenge, etc. | 
 
 62. P. 672: Health and understanding gained. Con- 
 genital invalidism. 
 
 63. P. 673: An ever-present help found. Fracture 
 of the jaw; chronic and malignant diarrhcea; deafness. 
 
 64. P. 675: Many physical and mental troubles 
 overcome. Tuberculosis of the face pronounced 
 incurable. 
 
 65. P. 676: A new life gained. Tobacco and liquor- 
 habits cured. 
 
 66. P. 677: A voice from England. Dyspepsia; 
 congestion of the liver; weak eyesight; need of 
 glasses. 
 
 67. P. 678: Depraved appetites overcome. ‘Tobacco 
 and liquor habits; profanity; stomach trouble; bad 
 temper; avarice. 
 
 68. P. 679: Catarrh of stomach healed. Cigarette 
 habit; cramps in the stomach. 
 
 69. P. 681: Spinal disease healed. So-called incur- 
 able spinal disease of ten years’ standing. 
 
 70. P. 682: Many troubles overcome. Organic 
 trouble unrelieved by a specialist; blurred eyesight; 
 fatigue. 
 
 71. P. 683: Prejudice overcome. Stomach trouble; 
 inward weakness; bilious attacks. 
 
 72. P. 684: A convincing testimony. Constipation 
 with convulsions in a baby; croup; whooping cough; 
 tonsillitis. 
 
 73. P. 686: MHealed physically and_ spiritually. 
 
THE “CURES ” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 331 
 
 Cured of quick consumption during sleep; need of 
 glasses; constipation; dyspepsia; neuralgia. 
 
 74. P. 688: A voice from the South. A disease 
 called incurable by all physicians. 
 
 75. P. 688: Healed after much suffering. Dyspep- 
 sia; nervous debility. 
 
 76. P. 690: Through great tribulations. Spinal 
 trouble; insomnia. 
 
 77. P. 691: A helpful testimony. Colds; suffering; 
 coughing; consumption. 
 
 78. P. 693: Desire for liquor and tobacco dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 79. P. 694: An expression of loving gratitude. Has 
 seen “‘ nearly every so-called incurable disease healed.” 
 
 80. P. 695: Healed of Bright’s disease. Three doc- 
 tors said: “I would not live a year or would be men- 
 tally unbalanced.” 
 
 81. P. 696: Fibroid tumour destroyed. Chronic 
 sore throat; hay fever. 
 
 82. P. 697: Light out of darkness. Chronic catarrh; 
 laryngitis. 
 
 83. P. 698: A grateful testimony. ‘I was a wreck, 
 physically, mentally and financially. 
 
 84. P. 699: Healed of consumption and asthma. 
 
 What has scientific medicine to say as to the possi- 
 bility of recovery from the diseases here enumerated? 
 The answer is forthcoming without hesitation. A 
 symptomatic recovery is possible, assuming every diag- 
 nosis to be correct, and further, recovery is possible 
 without any treatment whatsoever. 
 
 Spontaneous cure of cancer in rare instances doubt- 
 less does occur, but such a favourable outcome is not 
 reasonably to be expected without appropriate and 
 timely treatment. Spontaneous recovery from pul- 
 
832 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 monary tuberculosis is extremely common. Valvular 
 heart disease and Bright’s disease of the kidneys, while 
 not recovered from in the sense that the destroyed tis- 
 sues are perfectly restored, patients with either, or 
 even both of these diseases can, and oftentimes do live 
 to ripe old age. 
 
 Thousands of women, especially those of the col- 
 oured race, carry uterine fibroids about in blissful igno- 
 rance that any such tumours exist. After middle life 
 these tumours may shrink and practically disappear. 
 
 What of epilepsy? Julius Cesar and Napoleon 
 Bonaparte were epileptics, and neither died of epilepsy, 
 nor does history record that they were saved by Chris- 
 tian Science. 
 
 What of fractures? Fractures without displacement 
 heal rapidly. The “ fracture” of the humerus in this 
 list was claimed to have been cured in the first ten 
 minutes after it occurred and with a loss of only thirty 
 minutes from work, all told. Such a fracture could 
 only have been an incomplete fracture. Moreover, 
 what the doctor who “ experimented ” with an X-ray 
 machine is reported to have seen in this case is no con- 
 firmation of a fracture—a “ slight thickening.” This 
 testimony was written at a time when X-ray was in its 
 infancy. Maintaining the fragments in correct ana- 
 tomical position while healing takes place is the proper 
 treatment of fractures. When this is not done, deform- 
 ity, vicious union or non-union occurs. A bad result 
 after fracture is so painfully apparent to the most 
 casual observer, and such a knock-out to the preten- 
 sions of Christian Science that our ‘“ Leader” was 
 shrewd enough to incorporate in her “ little book ” the 
 following: ‘‘ Until the advancing age admits the efficacy 
 and supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian 
 
THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 333 
 
 Scientists to leave surgery and the adjustment of 
 broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of a sur- 
 geon.” (401-27) Yes, indeed, Mary, much better! 
 
 Rheumatism is a self-limited disorder. Rheumatism 
 today is not the rheumatism of a generation ago, when 
 this testimony was penned. The first testimony of 
 Fruitage gives a fairly good clinical picture of arithritis 
 deformans, a chronic trouble that not infrequently will 
 arrest itself and remain stationary for long periods of 
 time—certainly long enough to get a testimonial into 
 the mail. 
 
 The ‘eye-troubles”’ healed, seem to have been 
 largely the wearing of glasses. Cataracts are named, 
 but not once is the diagnosis justified by what is re- 
 lated in the “‘ testimony.” It is a matter of common 
 knowledge that a good share of the glasses now being 
 worn could be laid aside without greatly impairing the 
 vision of those who thus adorn the face. However, do 
 Christian Scientists still repudiate glasses, or do they 
 “ fudge a little’ on this point as on dentistry? 
 
 “Spinal trouble” is a favourite expression with 
 those who enjoy poor health. Spinal cord disease 
 might mean locomotor ataxia. One of the diseases 
 Christian Science loves to “‘ cure” is this one, because 
 it is reputed to be incurable. The disease becomes 
 arrested at any stage for long periods of time, and 
 even undergoes symptomatic improvement. Locomotor 
 ataxia is regarded as a sequence of syphilis; and one 
 more saving clause in ‘“‘ Christian Science Practice ” 
 permitting the faithful to leave the “ spirochete pal- 
 lida” to “606” and mercury, might save the face of 
 Christian Science yet a little longer from inevitable 
 impending innocuous desuetude. 
 
 Hunchbacks, the living evidence of cured tubercu- 
 
834 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 losis of the bones of the spinal column, are familiar 
 figures everywhere. 
 
 What is to be said of “consumption in its last 
 stages,’ and when “ one lung is entirely gone”? Ask 
 any physician. A physician is called to ‘“ diagnose the 
 case,” in order to qualify him to sign the death cer- 
 tificate, else this little detail is attended to by the 
 Coroner. This matter will be taken up again a little 
 farther on. 
 
 “ Catarrh ” is, or was, quackery’s best paying diag- 
 nosis. The person who escaped a “ touch of” catarrh 
 at one time or another was a medical curiosity in the 
 closing days of the last century. “ Catarrh,” literally 
 a flowing, is a term that can be applied to any degree 
 of over-activity of any mucous membrane. Thus we 
 see catarrh of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, throat, lungs, 
 stomach, bowels, bladder, kidneys; in fact, most of the 
 organs of which a Christian Scientist has none. Ca- 
 tarrh of the stomach is possible only to those who have 
 intestinal viscera; likewise such persons are anatom- 
 ically barred from writing an acceptable Christian 
 Science ‘ testimonial.” 
 
 Hernia or rupture, is an extremely common condi- 
 tion. In the United States and its insular possessions, 
 there are fully 5,000,000 people suffering from rupture 
 in some form. Spontaneous cure in infancy is of fre- 
 quent occurrence. Recovery without treatment occurs 
 less frequently with advancing age, though the condi- 
 tion may disappear for long periods of time, only to 
 reappear. Surgery cures well above ninety per cent. 
 of all cases subjected to operation. With these facts 
 in mind, the reader can readily interpret an occasional 
 cure of hernia when claimed for any form of treatment, 
 and for no treatment, as in Christian Science. 
 
THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 335 
 
 Asthma, like dropsy, does not mean a great deal 
 when used by laymen to describe illness. 
 
 Spasmodic croup in children is terrifying to a young 
 mother, as are indeed many other not well understood 
 conditions. Every physician knows that a hurried call 
 in the middle of the night to a case of croup must be 
 responded to promptly, or the patient will be well again 
 before he arrives. 
 
 Constipation, generally a stupid and unnecessary 
 habit, heads the list in frequency among the miraculous 
 cures of Christian Science. This complaint keeps di- 
 vine science fairly busy through the dull season in 
 the healing business. ‘The condition is not in itself 
 startling, but its “instantaneous” cure might easily 
 become so. 
 
 It will be rightly seen that Fruitage at full face value 
 is far from convincing proof that Christian Science does 
 any better than the “ordinary ”’ doctor whom Mrs. 
 Eddy so roundly berates. 
 
 If due allowance is made for such mistakes as are 
 inevitable when laymen undertake the diagnosis of 
 their own ailments, Christian Science at once appears 
 at its true value as a system of healing, namely, the 
 value of the powers of resistance to disease which the 
 body naturally possesses. Again, if allowance is made 
 for the part that physicians probably played in the 
 management of many of the cases in the above list, and 
 for the misrepresentation of what the “ best” physi- 
 cians and great “specialists” really did say of the 
 cases reported “ given up,” Fruitage loses all right to 
 be called ‘‘ evidence ”’ and sinks to its proper level— 
 that of a collection of carefully edited patent nostrum 
 testimonials. 
 
 In the one hundred pages of Fruitage not a single 
 
886 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 failure is recorded. If Christian Science is of divine 
 origin, the last copyrighted word in healing—of course, 
 there can be no failures to record. Scientific medicine 
 makes no pretense to infallibility. By publishing its 
 failures really scientific workers endeavour to make 
 their failures stepping stones to success. If Christian 
 Science is what it claims to be, it cannot fail. No 
 amount of “metaphysical” floundering can explain 
 failure in a single case. If a lung can be restored when 
 it is wholly gone, a leg can be restored after it has been 
 amputated. The average person recognises the fact 
 that the lung is inside the body and out of reach of his 
 eyesight, while legs in these respects are different, 
 hence “ curing” the lungs, liver or kidneys, or pre- 
 venting inflammation is much safer practice than 
 demonstrating instantaneous cure of baldness. Much 
 ado is made over healing the need of glasses, but not 
 a word about the itch and head lice. Is the reader of 
 Science and Health to infer that Christian Science re- 
 fuses such cases? Perhaps the danger of making a 
 diagnosis prevents the recording of some of the cures. 
 Surgeons set the day and hour for their operative 
 treatment of the diseased conditions, which they at- 
 tempt to cure. Since there are no failures in Christian 
 Science, there should be no difficulty in arranging a 
 time and place for the instantaneous healing of cases 
 of cleft palate and harelip, restoring amputated legs, 
 growing new fingers, thinking tails back on for a flock 
 of sheep, and restoring ordinary truth and veracity to 
 a Christian Scientist who has attained to the third 
 degree of imbecility, known in “ scientific” parlance 
 as “understanding.” Ordinary doctors would like to 
 attend such a clinic. The owners of a copyrighted 
 system of divine healing are overlooking a wonderful 
 
THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 837 
 
 opportunity to crush out all competition in the business 
 of treating human ailments, by refusing some such 
 demonstration as is here suggested. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy appears to challenge all doctors and says: 
 “On this basis Christian Science will have a fair fight.” 
 (page vill, 1-15.) But before she “ passed on,” a foot- 
 note on page xii announced——“ The author takes no 
 patients, and declines medical consultation.” This 
 footnote does not appear in the latest edition. 
 
 It is perhaps a matter of supererogation to comment 
 on why Christian Scientists will not tolerate investiga- 
 tion of their “‘ science”’ by outsiders, even though the 
 only conditions be real disease and real cure. A post 
 mortem is particularly dreaded by all Christian Science 
 dealers. 
 
 Since Christian Science is a trade name for a money- 
 making business, that of treating human ailments, and 
 the directors of this business have demonstrated that 
 they possess great business acumen, the conclusion is 
 justified that the directors of this healing business do 
 not believe that a frank and open disclosure of methods 
 and end results is commercially advisable, 
 
IV 
 THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 F Christian Science is divine, it cannot fail. The 
 I diseases pronounced incurable by medical men 
 must, without exception, yield to omnipotence. 
 God in defeat is not comprehensible. A system of 
 healing that succeeds less than all the time is certainly 
 not “ divine.” Science and Health records no failures. 
 There are no Christian Science testimonials of Chris- 
 tian Science failures. A Christian Scientist in confess- 
 ing the failure of his system of healing would, by that 
 overt act, excommunicate himself. It is useless to look 
 to the advocates and adherents of Eddyism for confes- 
 sions of failure of this ‘‘ system of mind healing.” Such 
 confessions would betray common sense and common 
 honesty, and in matters of sickness no consistent Chris- 
 tian Scientist displays any such attributes. However, 
 Christian Scientists do die. Mary Baker Patterson 
 Glover Eddy died and remains too dead to use her 
 telephone. The members of the families of Christian 
 Science practitioners die, as do the practitioners them- 
 selves; and so far, they all stay dead. The patients of 
 these “‘ Mind ” doctors die and they all require burial 
 services that are ‘“ perfectly lovely.” On the trail of 
 every Christian Scientist is death. Christian Science is 
 not divine. It is a bogus healing system that fails all 
 the time. Its so-called successes are misunderstanding 
 or misrepresentation—usually both. 
 The medical profession is constantly called upon to 
 
 338 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 339 
 
 treat Christian Science healers, and when these hypo- 
 crites recover through medical or surgical measures, 
 they invariably ascribe their healing to mental treat- 
 ment, and at once resume their gainful occupation— 
 that of practicing medicine without a license. A Chris- 
 tian Science healer has use for the services of a physi- 
 cion when he himself is sick, and when in need of a 
 fence between his nefarious business and the coroner. 
 Instead of abolishing “sickness, sin, and death,” 
 Christian Science makes very substantial contribution 
 to all three. 
 
 Through medical channels request was made for the 
 details of such cases as might reasonably be expected 
 to recover under timely and proper treatment, but 
 which through reliance upon Christian Science, resulted 
 unfavourably. Physicians in all parts of the United 
 States responded. The request for this information 
 carried with it the promise that names would not be 
 made public, and that these case reports be written in 
 simple language free from technical terms. Al! but 
 two of these case reports are from physicians. 
 
 The identity of the patient in one case will, of course, 
 be surmised by every reader of this book. There is 
 not space for all of the case reports received. Some 
 of the worst and most revolting are omitted. Similar 
 examples of Christian Science failures can be found in 
 almost every community in this country. The reader 
 is requested to discuss these cases with any competent 
 physician. In this way, a better understanding can be 
 had of the crime of Christian Science. 
 
 These accounts of the failures of Christian Science 
 are not open to dispute as to results. No metaphysical 
 antics can make successful claim to “ healing” a dis- 
 ease that killed the patient. Death and recovery do 
 
840 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 not lie in the same direction. Those who die in Chris- 
 tian Science surely do not illustrate any efficacy of this 
 method of treating human ailments. 
 
 The names of the Christian Science practitioners 
 who are involved in the cases here reported, and who 
 have paid five dollars a line to advertise the fact that 
 they have been approved by the Board of Directors of 
 the Mother Church, are withheld from publication, as 
 these failures are the failures of this system of Mind 
 healing, and not the failures of individuals. 
 
 Graven on the walls of the Mother Church in Boston 
 are the following words from Science and Health: “ If 
 the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, 
 the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and 
 the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like 
 dew before the morning sunshine.” (365-15, 19) On 
 the same page of this self-same book Mrs. Eddy can 
 again be quoted in the following words: ‘‘ If hypocrisy, 
 stolidity, inhumanity, or vice finds its way into the 
 chambers of disease through the would-be healer, it 
 would, if it were possible, convert into a den of thieves 
 the temple of the Holy Ghost.” (365-25, 19) 
 
 If Christian Science were of divine origin, what 
 Mrs. Eddy says of ‘one visit”? healing would occur 
 every time. The reader is invited to make his own 
 application of the second quotation from this 
 ** Mother-God.” 
 
 These accounts of Christian Science failures from 
 everyday life speak volumes to those who have the 
 understanding of experience. The picture of little 
 Esther, dying of pneumonia, forced to keep up and 
 about, begging for a moment’s respite from exhaustion 
 in mother’s lap, and repulsed with “ Run along and 
 play with sister,” will bring home to every normal 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 341 
 
 mother the feeling that this parent was obsessed by 
 something strangely, brutally inhuman. ‘The reader 
 who gives thoughtful consideration to the accounts 
 of failure filling the pages which here follow will 
 know that the trail of this modern sorcery is marked 
 by the slaughter of innocents. Here and there a 
 touch of comedy appears; but, for the most part, 
 these cases are tragedy—useless, cruel waste of 
 human life. 
 
 Cancer of the Breast—Fatal. 
 
 A woman, aged 42, the mother of three children, in 
 age ranging from about eleven down to three, gave the 
 following history: In June, 1920, she noticed a lump in 
 her left breast which, continuing to increase in size, 
 led her, in August, two months later, to consult Drs. 
 T. and H., who made a diagnosis of probable malig- 
 nancy. The patient’s sister, an adherent of the Chris- 
 tian Science faith, persuaded her to rely on Christian 
 Science rather than follow the advice of the physicians, 
 who urged operation. Accordingly, the patient, buoyed 
 up by the promise of certain cure without operation, 
 began taking treatments of a practitioner named 
 Mrs. H. 
 
 The patient visited the practitioner once a week to 
 receive treatment, and incidentally to make payment of 
 the weekly charge of five dollars. During the rest of 
 the week absent treatments were given. These treat- 
 ments were continued until the patient was too weak 
 to visit the practitioner, who lived a dozen miles 
 away. Furthermore, the practitioner requested the 
 patient to take treatment from some one else, as 
 mortal mind was interfering with the case and she 
 could do no more. 
 
842 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Conditions becoming alarming, the husband insisted 
 on calling in a surgeon. On February 14, 1923, I was 
 called to the home to “‘ arrange for the operation ” pre- 
 viously advised by Drs. T. and H. Upon entering the 
 room where the patient lay reclining on a couch, she 
 arose and literally staggered as she advanced to greet 
 me. I shall never forget the picture presented in this 
 poor woman’s home—poor in a double sense. The 
 patient, yellow as a lemon, so short of breath that her 
 voice was scarcely audible, said that she thought every- 
 thing was coming along all right, but to please her hus- 
 band she had decided to withdraw her opposition to 
 surgical treatment, and wished me to make the neces- 
 sary arrangements for immediate operation. 
 
 A brief examination showed an emaciated woman, 
 who appeared many years older than the age given. 
 Her skin was intensely jaundiced from secondary can- 
 cerous involvement of the liver, and it was evident that 
 dissolution was near at hand. In reply to the patient’s 
 question as to how soon she could have the operation, 
 I replied that I did not advise operation. 
 
 In the adjoining room the older of the little children, 
 a girl of perhaps ten or eleven, was attempting to pre- 
 pare a belated breakfast for the three little ones. On 
 every hand was evidence that the mother had been 
 compelled to give up her household duties. As I looked 
 upon this little family, my professional side gave place 
 to that of the father, for I have little ones of my own. 
 The impending tragedy about to destroy the happiness 
 of this humble home and to despoil this little group of 
 the mother’s guiding hand, to me was a situation most 
 tragic. I asked the husband and father to step outside 
 in order that I might tell him privately that an oper- 
 ation would be worse than useless. The poor woman’s 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 348 
 
 suffering lasted just two weeks longer, when she 
 “passed on,” as her sister informed me—the same 
 sister whose pernicious advice was responsible for this 
 untimely death. 
 
 Diphtheria—No Antitoxin—Death. 
 
 Several years ago, a woman came to my office and 
 asked me to accompany her to a little cottage in the 
 neighbourhood. We were met by the father and 
 mother of a little girl whom I was asked to examine. 
 The little patient, ten or eleven years of age, presented 
 a strikingly beautiful picture as she lay in her little bed 
 with her hair fallen in tangled golden ringlets over her 
 shoulders and upon her pillow. As I approached the 
 bed, I could see that she was not breathing, and on 
 closer examination, found she was dead. 
 
 I informed the parents that the child was dead, 
 whereupon they contradicted me, saying: ‘ She is not 
 dead, but has passed on.”” I asked why they had sent 
 for me, and they replied: ‘‘ Only to conform to the rules 
 of the Health Department which require a death 
 certificate.” | 
 
 They said that they knew that the child was not 
 dead; that the Lord had called the child home where 
 they would meet her in the future as the child they 
 loved and where she would always be a child to them. 
 
 There was not a tear in the eyes of either parent. I 
 asked them what the child had been complaining of, 
 and how long she had been sick. They replied that 
 she had not been sick at all, but in her childish igno- 
 rance and innocence, she thought that she had a sore 
 throat for almost a week. 
 
 I asked them to give me a spoon with which to de- 
 press the tongue so that I could examine the throat. 
 
844 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 This they did, and, as I expected, I found a diph- 
 theritic membrane covering the tonsils, pharynx, and 
 palate. 
 
 I told them that the child had died of diphtheria, and 
 could have been saved by a single dose of antitoxin, 
 had they called a doctor a few days before. This they 
 disputed; and they seemed perfectly satisfied that the 
 child had “ passed on.” 
 
 I refused to sign the death certificate, and made this 
 a coroner’s case, where it stands as a matter of record 
 in the coroner’s office in this city. 
 
 Mental Obstetrics—Fatal Postpartum Hemorrhage. 
 
 My attention is attracted to your study of the ques- 
 tion of the dangers of relying on Christian Science in 
 cases of serious disease. I am sending you an account 
 of my worst case. 
 
 The subject of this sketch of Christian Science mal- 
 practice was a Mrs. B., a strong, rugged woman, 
 already the mother of two healthy children. I had 
 seen this woman about town frequently and was aware 
 that the number of children in her household was soon 
 to be augmented. I also knew the family to be Chris- 
 tian Scientists. At four o’clock one morning, this 
 woman’s husband called me to come down quickly and 
 bring instruments. 
 
 I hastened to the “ B.” residence and was met at the 
 door by a woman in nurse’s costume, who conducted 
 me to the bed chamber. Mrs. B. stated that she was 
 feeling “all right”? and that nothing had happened. 
 Her appearance belied her assertions. Her face was 
 ghostly white and she was pulseless at the wrist. A 
 baby had been born, but the room and bed were clean 
 and tidy and betrayed no visible sign of any untoward 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 345 
 
 condition. The patient, however, was exsanguinated. It 
 was perfectly evident that she had suffered a dangerous, 
 if not fatal hemorrhage. She was no longer bleeding; 
 she no longer had blood enough to sustain hemorrhage. 
 
 Seeing death written in her face, I summoned Dr. 
 R., living two blocks away, and while he was coming, 
 I hastened to the hospital, a distance of one block, for 
 a blood transfusion outfit. Dr. R. answered my urgent 
 call for assistance so promptly that I found him wait- 
 ing when I returned to the house. The patient was 
 already dead upon Dr. R.’s arrival. The husband and 
 the nurse both denied that there had been any hemor- 
 rhage, but Dr. R. and myself could not credit their 
 statements, and agreed that the woman came to her 
 death through loss of blood. Later, the patient’s aunt, 
 who is not “in science,” divulged the fact that the 
 husband, before calling for help, had burned the blood- 
 soaked bedding, and that there had been enough of it 
 to fill the furnace a second time. 
 
 I refused to sign a death certificate. The husband, 
 backed up by an attorney, endeavoured to coerce me 
 into sparing the family and the Christian Scientists 
 the odium of a coroner’s inquest. In spite of their 
 cajolery and their threats, I stood my ground. I told 
 them that they were this woman’s executioners, that 
 in this day and age, with so many safeguards available 
 to avert disaster on occasions like this, it grieved me 
 greatly to witness the taking of human life through 
 such crass ignorance, and that I greatly regretted that 
 the little hurt to their business incidental to a coroner’s 
 inquest was all that a criminally inadequate law could 
 do. The coroner held his inquest, and furnished the 
 certificate, assigning as the cause of death, “ post- 
 partum hemorrhage.” 
 
846 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Diphtheria—Untreated—Fatal. 
 
 I am hoping that the following case report may be 
 used to discourage withholding proper treatment from 
 children suffering from diphtheria, that dread disease 
 so fatal in early childhood. 
 
 A little girl, one of four bright children that made up 
 the family of a Christian Scientist living in our little 
 city, was taken sick with sore throat. The little 
 sufferer was given very little consideration and scant 
 heed was paid to her complaint of pain on swallowing. 
 Christian Science treatment, whatever that may be, 
 was administered by the parents at first. However, as 
 the child seemed to be getting worse instead of better, 
 a regular Christian Science practitioner was employed, 
 but her treatment was equally unavailing. Conditions 
 becoming worse and worse, a practitioner of reputed 
 greater power was summoned from a nearby city, who 
 gave absent treatment from the “ big city.” The result 
 was the same, the little patient continued to grow worse 
 and slowly choked to death. I have known a number 
 of instances where Christian Science proved useless, 
 but do not recall any others so tragic as this. 
 
 Tuberculosis—H emorrhage—Death. 
 
 Last August I received a call to Mr. K.’s house, and 
 found that he had suffered a severe hemorrhage from 
 the lungs. I had previously examined his sputum and 
 found tubercle bacilli. The young man was rejected 
 in the draft. A year ago he started a bakery and was 
 the chief baker. From the standpoint of the public 
 this was an unsanitary proposition. He worked long 
 hours and his vital strength was greatly diminished. 
 
 The last time I saw this young man alive was on the 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 347 
 
 eighth day of September. At that time he expressed a 
 strong desire to get back to his business. I told him 
 that such a thing was extremely inadvisable. The time 
 set for him to remain quiet in bed was from six to nine 
 weeks from the date of his hemorrhage. It was plain 
 to me that my advice was contrary to the wishes of the 
 patient. The next day a Christian Science practitioner 
 was called. The patient was promptly told that there 
 was not the least danger in getting out of bed and 
 attending to his business at once. Three days later, I 
 was called to the telephone by a local undertaker, who 
 asked me to sign a death certificate for Mr. K. The 
 undertaker informed me that a Christian Science prac- 
 titioner had been installed as adviser to the patient and 
 had advised the patient to get up and around without 
 fear of any consequences. ‘The patient had followed 
 the practitioner’s advice. ‘The exertion of getting up 
 had brought on an alarming hemorrhage which ended 
 in the patient’s death within a few minutes. I signed 
 the death certificate. The name of the miserable 
 fanatic who treated my hemoptysis case to death is car- 
 ried on the list of those given approval by the Christian 
 Science officials as published in The Christian Science 
 Journal. 
 
 Uterine Fibroid. 
 
 The patient had been under Christian Science treat- 
 ment for three years. Her complaint had been of uter- 
 ine hemorrhage, which recently had grown much worse. 
 Realising that her strength was ebbing away despite 
 the assurance of the Christian Science practitioner that 
 everything was all harmonious and that Christian 
 Science always healed the fear of disease in cases like 
 hers, the patient, overruling her husband’s wishes, 
 
848 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 called in a physician. A diagnosis of uterine fibroid 
 with pelvic sepsis was made, and the patient sent to the 
 hospital for operation. 
 
 The patient was as “ white as a ghost” and very 
 weak from loss of blood, and from the effects of the 
 septic infection. The hemoglobin value was only thirty 
 per cent. Operation was the patient’s only chance, so 
 the tumour was surgically removed and drainage es- 
 tablished. On account of the great anemia and the 
 complication of sepsis, an unfavourable result was 
 feared, but she managed to pull through. 
 
 Her recovery marked the close of the reign of Chris- 
 tian Science in this household. This woman, at this 
 writing, January, 1924, is in robust health, but still 
 shudders when she allows herself to think how nearly 
 her dependent children came to losing their mother 
 through their father’s addiction to Christian Science. 
 
 cc 
 
 Pneumonia in a Child. 
 
 Just twenty years ago we lived next door to a family 
 of Christian Scientists. The husband and father had 
 recently died of typhoid fever, leaving a family of chil- 
 dren, the younger ones being Janet, aged three, and 
 Esther, who was five. Late in the fall, Esther was 
 taken sick with a severe cold. She drooped about the 
 house, coughed, and complained of a pain in her side. 
 
 A Christian Science practitioner was employed—a 
 Mrs. B., who came to the house every day to give 
 treatments. The healer would sit in the presence of 
 the child and quote from Science and Health. Many 
 times she would repeat: “I can see your father now, 
 he was about to embrace Christian Science just before 
 he passed on, and had he done so, he would be with his 
 little girl today.”” Esther was encouraged, and wishing 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 349 
 
 to please her mother, frequently asserted that she was 
 not sick. I asked the mother why she did not put 
 some oil on the little lips and nose, as they were so 
 sore and angry-looking. The mother replied, “I am 
 afraid that God would desert us if I used a material 
 remedy.” I told her that I read and followed the 
 Bible, too, and that the Saviour anointed with oil. She 
 said, ‘‘ I wish I had your faith, but I’m afraid.” The 
 little child was trying to appear well. While I was 
 calling, she stood in the open doorway in the chill wind 
 and coughed so that it made my heart bleed to look at 
 her. After a few minutes, little Esther came to her 
 mother’s side and, half whispering, said, ‘‘ I feel better, 
 mamma, won’t you let me sit in your lap a little while?” 
 The mother said, “ Run along, dear, and play with 
 baby sister, I am talking to Mrs. C.” 
 
 The following day, an older brother came into our 
 yard. I asked him about Esther. He said that the 
 lady healer was in the house then and that he had just 
 overheard her tell his mother that Esther was doing 
 fine, that the only thing to fear now was the opposition 
 of the neighbours. The boy’s quivering chin, his wor- 
 ried and anxious look, told me a different story. He 
 came on into the house. I encouraged him to get their 
 former family physician, who had always called Esther 
 his ‘“ best little girl.” Upon entering the house the 
 mother, in great surprise, said, ““ Who sent for you? ” 
 His answer was, “ Where’s Esther?” and strode up- 
 stairs. In a little while he came down again looking 
 very serious. He said to the disturbed mother, 
 ‘‘ Esther has pneumonia; she is nearing the crisis, and 
 I’m afraid my ‘ best little girl’ is slipping away.” 
 
 The doctor refused to leave the house. Toward mid- 
 night the little sufferer seemed easier, but oh, so pale. 
 
350 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Calling feebly to her doctor friend, who was already as 
 close to her bed as he could get, she said, “ ’'m going 
 to sleep now, Doctor, good night, Ill see you in the 
 morning.” But for little Esther the morning came that 
 night. This tragedy so affected the mother that she 
 made me a sort of health guardian for the baby, and 
 ever afterward, when Janet seemed indisposed, she 
 was sent to me. 
 
 Cancer of the Breast—Operation Delayed. 
 
 About two years ago I had referred to me a middle- 
 aged woman who came to see about a lump in her 
 breast which had been pronounced suspicious by the 
 family physician. My examination showed a tumour 
 of the right breast and another large growth in the arm 
 pit. This last named growth was as large as a goose 
 egg and upon my inquiring how long the family doctor 
 had been watching this tumour grow, the patient re- 
 plied: “ To tell the truth, our home doctor did not see 
 this lump until yesterday. We are Christian Scientists 
 now and have not consulted any doctor for several 
 years. 
 
 I advised immediate operation and remarked that we 
 would make the best of a serious situation. The pa- 
 tient, now thoroughly alarmed, was eager for prompt 
 surgical intervention. A radical operation was done. 
 A recurrence has been operated upon, X-ray is being 
 used with a powerful machine, but I do not feel 
 very hopeful of the outcome. I am aware that my 
 concern for the welfare of this patient will be con- 
 demned by Christian Scientists as harmful to the 
 patient’s chance of recovery. But I entertain no such 
 foolish notion. This same solicitude for my patient’s 
 welfare has led me many, many times to insist upon 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 351 
 
 early operation in similar cases and with most gratify- 
 ing results. 
 
 Christian Science and Insanity. 
 
 During twelve years of service as Superintendent of 
 a State Hospital for the Insane, we have had numerous 
 instances wherein insanity and Christian Science have 
 been so blended that it was hard to draw the dividing 
 line between the two, if there be any such dividing line 
 that can be drawn. 
 
 Of course, from a psychiatric standpoint, Christian 
 Science is nothing more nor less than a delusion, and 
 a delusion is one of the many symptoms of mental 
 disturbance. 
 
 Uterine Fibroid—Insanity. 
 
 A woman, the wife of a grocer and the mother of 
 three children, at the age of forty, developed a uterine 
 tumour. She likewise suffered the inconvenience and 
 the unfavourable influence upon her health that so fre- 
 quently come from decayed teeth. Both her uncle, 
 who is a physician, and myself insisted on dental and 
 surgical treatment for her various ailments. At times, 
 her condition occasioned grave concern on account of 
 the severe hemorrhages which she suffered. 
 
 She was visited by members of the Christian Science 
 sect, who are always to be found on the lookout for 
 business, and she fell for their unbounded promises of 
 complete restoration to “harmony.” She suffered an 
 attack of influenza. The practitioners and a Christian 
 Science nurse were given full charge of the case. The 
 husband, becoming alarmed, ousted the pretenders, and 
 secured real doctors and nurses. Physically, she recov- 
 ered, but mentally she never came back. She has fixed 
 
352 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 delusions and the outlook for her recovery is very un- 
 certain. I am convinced that had this woman had 
 timely dental and surgical attention and had escaped 
 the Christian Science hounding that was forced upon 
 her, she would today be in sound health. On the con- 
 trary, she is confined in a sanitarium, away from her 
 family and with very little prospect of regaining her 
 reason. There is no insanity in her family, no 
 “science,” no delusions or other evidence of mental 
 aberration. 
 
 Insanity—Following Disastrous Results of Christian 
 Science Practice. 
 
 One of the most consistent and ardent followers of 
 the teachings of the much-married Mary Baker Eddy 
 formerly lived in my home town. This misguided 
 woman of the sublime faith in Mother Eddy witnessed 
 the sacrifice of one of her children through untreated 
 diphtheria. ‘Then followed the loss of a son, who de- 
 parted this life through a fear of pneumonia. A 
 daughter got married and the son-in-law developed a 
 fatal infection of the hand. 
 
 Her husband, co-believer in the wholeness of the all 
 and the allness of the whole, fell into the hands of the 
 surgeons and persisted in relapsing into error with most 
 annoying regularity. This series of disasters unhinged 
 what little mental equipment she had left which, by the 
 Way, was no great amount in the beginning, and she 
 became a nuisance to the community. She is now a 
 patient in the State Hospital for the Insane at P : 
 where her surroundings are at last harmonious and the 
 atmosphere of lunacy uncontaminated with reason or 
 common sense. 
 
 She now enjoys the companionship of many a Mrs. 
 
 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 358 
 
 Eddy who believes herself God, and can hold converse 
 with those who speak with the authority of angels and 
 enjoy the consciousness of being co-equal with Jesus. 
 What a haven for a third degree Christian Scientist! 
 
 Benign Tumour—Suicide Attempted. 
 
 Your letter in the Indiana Journal comes to my desk 
 just at the time of an experience that is apropos. 
 
 A young lady, twenty-two years of age, a virtuous 
 girl of an estimable family, was brought to the hospital 
 with a self-inflicted gunshot wound of the head. Dr. 
 J. S. is the surgeon in the case, and I administered the 
 anesthetic. ‘The patient was in considerable shock, 
 but fortunately the bullet, which entered at the right 
 temple, ranged forward and was lodged just behind the 
 frontal sinus. It was removed, and she made a good 
 recovery. For a number of days she refused to give 
 any reason for her attempt on her life. Before leaving 
 the hospital, however, she finally divulged to Dr. S. the 
 fact that over a year ago she had noticed a small, pain- 
 ful tumour near the urethral orifice. 
 
 Following the misleading dictates of her modesty, 
 she decided not to consult her family physician, but to 
 go to a lady science reader whom she happened to 
 know. This practitioner told her that the growth was 
 what doctors called cancer, but that she could cure it 
 after a number of readings. The young lady took the 
 treatment faithfully, but continued to report to the 
 reader that she was getting no better, and that the 
 growth was still very painful, especially upon urination. 
 A few days before the rash act of the patient, the prac- 
 titioner was forced to acknowledge that she was unable 
 to cure the “‘ cancer,” and that further treatment would 
 be unavailing, as some one was interfering in her case. 
 
354 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 The poor girl was so distraught at this information that 
 she attempted suicide with almost successful result. 
 
 At the conclusion of this recital, she gave Dr. S. per- 
 mission to examine her, and he, of course, discovered a 
 urethral caruncle, which was removed in a very short 
 time under local anesthesia. The young lady has now 
 left the hospital perfectly well, but having learned, at a 
 frightful cost, the effects of consulting other than a 
 reputable physician. 
 
 Strangulated Hernia—Sepsis—Peritonitis—Death. 
 
 On April 30, 1922, a few hours before a confirmed 
 Christian Scientist “‘ passed on,” I made my first pro- 
 fessional visit to her bedside. It was just another 
 ‘“‘ same old story ’—impending need of a death certifi- 
 cate. The stench of a decomposing human body in the 
 house is too much for even non-smelling Christian 
 Science nostrils, hence it is mandatory from Boston 
 upon Christian Scientists everywhere to ‘‘ obey the 
 law,” and secure a burial permit. 
 
 Here is what I found: The patient, a woman of 
 forty, lay in semi-stupour, with high fever and flutter- 
 ing pulse. The odour in the house was vile beyond 
 description. Steeling myself to the task, I proceeded 
 to determine the cause of all this. I found the skin of 
 the abdomen much thickened and very red. The same 
 condition prevailed over the right hip and down the 
 right thigh as far as the knee. This dark reddened 
 skin was much swollen and fluctuant, while in the right 
 lower abdominal area there was a black and gangren- 
 ous spot two by three inches in extent. This gangren- 
 ous area displayed irregular ragged openings from 
 which exuded bloody fluid, gas, and fecal matter. 
 
 During my examination, which was not unduly pro- 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 355 
 
 longed, at least three pints of horribly-smelling gaseous 
 and pus-like fecal matter escaped from the region of 
 the right groin, befouling the patient’s person and the 
 bed upon which she lay. The patient was in the last 
 stages of sepsis and peritonitis, and she was mercifully 
 released by death a few hours later. A post-mortem 
 was refused; indeed, my ante-mortem examination 
 made an autopsy unnecessary. 
 
 The history of this case, as reluctantly confessed by 
 the inner circle of this affair, was as follows: For about 
 one year this woman had been annoyed by a “little 
 hard swelling ” in the right groin. Upon lying down, 
 she could, by a “ little rubbing and prayer,” cause this 
 swelling to disappear. On the evening of April 17, 
 1922, the swelling reappeared, but the usual recumbent 
 position, rubbing and prayer failed to yield the cus- 
 tomary relief. 
 
 Two professional Christian Science practitioners 
 were then employed. Armed with Science and Health, 
 they administered what they were pleased to call 
 “treatments ” up to the time of my visit. When I was 
 sent for, one of the “ healers ” withdrew, but the other 
 said that she would continue her “‘ treatments.” Be- 
 fore noon of the following day, the undertaker began 
 his treatment. 
 
 This fatal case of neglected strangulated hernia, in a 
 Christian Science adherent, faithful to Eddyism for 
 nearly a score of years, and in a woman of superior 
 intelligence in other respects, is a most tragic, a most 
 cruel example of the folly of worshipping and following 
 after that mental freak—Mary Baker Eddy. I trust 
 that publishing the revolting details of this case may 
 open the eyes of some who delude themselves into 
 thinking that Christian Science does no harm. 
 
356 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Cancer of the Breast. 
 
 The patient, a music teacher, aged forty-five years, 
 came to me at the suggestion of Dr. R. C., who had 
 known the family for many years, although he had not 
 rendered any professional service for a long time. The 
 patient, accompanied by an elderly woman, of appar- 
 ently seventy years of age, whom she introduced as her 
 mother, announced that she was convinced that there 
 was nothing the matter with her, but to please her 
 mother she had consulted their former family doctor, 
 who expressed a desire to have me make an examina- 
 tion and give him an opinion as to the advisability of 
 surgical interference. 
 
 An examination of the patient revealed a cancer of 
 the left breast in an advanced stage. The tumour had 
 broken down and there was a large and offensive ulcer 
 over its most prominent part. The glands in the axilla 
 were enormously enlarged, and the size of the left arm 
 was twice that of the right. Masses of cancerous 
 glands were visible along the clavicle; and there was 
 embarrassed breathing from intrathoracic extension. 
 The patient asserted that she was not at all concerned 
 about her condition, but if I thought an operation was 
 indicated, to please her dear old mother, she would 
 submit to whatever I thought best to do. I stated 
 that, in my opinion, an operation would not do her 
 any good, whereupon she turned to the mother and 
 triumphantly said, “ Didn’t I tell you so?” The 
 mother sensed the situation correctly and was not in 
 the least comforted. 
 
 The old family physician was called upon for his 
 professional services once again in a few weeks, 
 after which that dear old mother was left in the 
 home alone. 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 357 
 
 Lung Abscess—Fatal. 
 
 Mrs. J., aged fifty, a very large fat woman, was an 
 ardent Christian Scientist for many years prior to her 
 death. She contracted a cold and for some time was 
 troubled with a cough. She was not seen at this time 
 by a competent physician and so no accurate diagnosis 
 was made. She suddenly became worse, with high 
 fever and difficult breathing. Her Christian Science 
 healer called a quack doctor in consultation, who said 
 she had pneumonia. The two fakers continued to at- 
 tend for a week or two, assuring her that she was 
 steadily improving. She began to expectorate a foul- 
 smelling sputum and was told that this was a favour- 
 able sign. Suddenly, one afternoon, while sitting up 
 because of difficult breathing, she was suddenly over- 
 whelmed with a gush of fetid pus. It poured from her 
 nose and mouth and filled her lungs by aspiration. 
 She and her husband became alarmed and sent for a 
 surgeon. On his arrival he found the woman cyanotic, 
 struggling for breath, drawing in pus. An abscess of the 
 lung had ulcerated through into a bronchus. A hasty 
 effort was made to drain the chest, but the patient died 
 a horrible death, strangled in foul-smelling pus before 
 preparation could be made to operate. A drainage tube 
 a few days earlier would have saved her life. She died 
 a victim of Christian Science and fanaticism. 
 
 Scarlet Fever—Kidney Complication—Death. 
 
 In the fall of 1914 I was asked, one evening, to see 
 a three-year-old boy, the child of people theretofore 
 strangers to me, who told me that the child had been 
 refusing food and vomiting for three or four days. He 
 had, that evening, become unconscious. No physician, 
 it was claimed, had seen him. 
 
858 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 The child was characteristically desquamating about 
 hands and feet and the face and limbs were markedly 
 edematous. He died the following day and, although I 
 reported scarlet fever and signed the death certificate 
 on the same day, nobody asked any questions. I did 
 not learn until afterward that both parents were 
 “pious ” Eddyites. 
 
 A Typical Letier. 
 
 Dear Doctor: 
 
 I have just seen your letter as it appears in the Ohio 
 State Medical Journal. IY am sorry I have never kept 
 full records as to all Christian Science fatalities, but a 
 few cases stand out before me very prominently. 
 
 A woman upon whom I had made a successful Czsa- 
 rean section came to me a few years later with a can- 
 cerous nodule in her breast, the size of the end of my 
 finger. I at once advised radical operation. She re- 
 turned about a year later, having been under Christian 
 Science treatment in the interval. By that time the 
 cancer had assumed huge proportions, and the case 
 was hopeless. I operated for palliative purposes to 
 render her more comfortable, but the end result was 
 the same. 
 
 I saw an elderly woman about midnight, with a 
 physician who had just been called in the case. She 
 was suffering with typical symptoms of intestinal ob- 
 struction. She had been having these symptoms for 
 several days, but had been taking Christian Science 
 treatment. She was sent to the hospital and operated 
 upon at once, but found a gangrenous condition of the 
 bowel with rupture and the exitus was prompt. 
 
 Only recently two prominent ladies of this city, both 
 former members of the School Board, died of cancer. 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 359 
 
 Both of them had been under Christian Science treat- 
 ment, the one until her death, the other until a few 
 weeks before, when she slipped over into the hands of 
 the Abrams cult. 
 
 I have had a considerable number of cases in which 
 the patients switched their Christian Science treatment 
 in time to be saved, but the necessary operations were 
 much more serious than they would have been could 
 they have been made earlier. 
 
 When your book appears I shall ¢ertainly read it 
 with much interest, and hope it will be widely circu- 
 lated among the laity. 
 
 Ovarian Cyst—Delayed O peration—Death. 
 
 Enclosed find a photograph of a woman, who was 
 living in the heart of a large American city while this 
 immense ovarian cyst was forming. All the while she 
 was depending on Christian Science to remove it. This 
 photograph was taken after her admittance to a hos- 
 pital. The tumour had been growing for three and a 
 half years before her condition became so desperate 
 that she was forced to seek “‘ material” relief. The 
 woman was only thirty-six years of age, and previous 
 to her illness her weight had never exceeded one hun- 
 dred and twelve pounds. After the development of the 
 tumour to its greatest size, the patient weighed two 
 hundred pounds, more than half of which was tumour. 
 
 This patient presented a shocking appearance—thin 
 face, thin arms and lower limbs and such an enormous 
 abdomen that when she lay in an ordinary hospital bed, 
 a second bed was required alongside the first, in order 
 to support the abdomen with its contained tumour. 
 When this tumour had grown for eight months, it be- 
 came smaller by bursting through the vagina, but 
 
3860 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 within a few weeks it became as large as before, and 
 continued to grow, up to the date of her admission to 
 the hospital. On the day before she entered the hos- 
 pital she was taken with a sharp cutting pain in the 
 right dorsal region, feeling as if the eighth rib had been 
 broken, and on the day of admission there were similar 
 pains on the left side. Previous to this time she had 
 not been confined to bed. 
 
 The patient had great difficulty in breathing and was 
 in very bad condition. No attempt at a radical oper- 
 ation could safely be made. Palliative aspiration was 
 done during the week following admission to the hos- 
 pital, but she gradually grew weaker and weaker until 
 she died. 
 
 An autopsy showed an enormous ovarian cyst with 
 complicating pathology. I call this case a perpetual 
 monument to the folly of trusting Christian Science in 
 cases of real disease. A timely surgical operation 
 would have saved this young woman’s life as thousands 
 of similar cases attest. 
 
 Infantile Paralysis. 
 
 Inspection and quarantine resisted. One of the 
 older physicians of this city asked me to call and see a 
 child in the family of a Christian Scientist. The doctor 
 suspected the illness to be infantile paralysis, and 
 wished my opinion in the matter. 
 
 I made the visit as requested, and was met at the 
 door by the patient’s mother. In spite of my cre- 
 dentials as Health Commissioner, she refused to let 
 me in. She went back into the house and telephoned 
 two or three times. As she still refused to admit me, I 
 started for the patrol box, threatening to take her to 
 the police station. I was then called back and per- 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 361 
 
 mitted to make the necessary examination. Examina- 
 tion revealed the fact that the child was suffering from 
 infantile paralysis. The usual quarantine was estab- 
 lished and enforced. 
 
 Smallpox—No Quarantine for Five Days. 
 
 R. S., a boy of sixteen, received Christian Science 
 treatment for whatever ailed him for several days. The 
 healer, an approved practitioner of this cult, says she 
 gave only absent treatments at first, but as the boy 
 continued to claim he was sick, she made a personal 
 visit. At this visit the healer discovered an eruption. 
 In the meahtime, the boy had been placed in the home 
 of a friend of the family, a Mrs. M., also an approved 
 Christian Science practitioner. This change of resi- 
 dence took place on January 25, 1924. The boy, with 
 the eruption on his face and body, came and went, in 
 and out, of an apartment house in which six families 
 lived. On January 25th, he visited two picture shows 
 and mingled freely with the crowds, all the time receiv- 
 ing treatment for his so-called eruption. On January 
 29th, the Health Department learned of the matter, 
 ascertained the boy’s ailment to be smallpox and at 
 once removed him to the Isolation Hospital. 
 
 All this occurred in a populous residence neighbour- 
 hood of Chicago, and there followed numerous other 
 cases of smallpox in that part of the city. There is no 
 way of determining how many of them were due to this 
 one. It is idle to say that Christian Scientists comply 
 with the laws concerning communicable diseases—they 
 cannot, and they do not. 
 
 Vaccination Treated—lIt “ Took.” 
 Three years ago we had an epidemic of smallpox. 
 
362 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Vaccination was ordered in the schools. Two of the 
 teachers and one pupil were Christian Scientists. They 
 did not refuse to be vaccinated, but asserted that they 
 had prepared themselves so that it would not “ take.” 
 It fell to my lot to vaccinate all three, and to inspect 
 their arms to ascertain which ones had been successful. 
 I was gratified to discover that, in spite of their “ pre- 
 paredness,” all three had typical reactions. I can 
 testify that this variety of prayer is no match for 
 vaccine virus, provided it is well rubbed into a 
 properly prepared area of the skin of a Christian 
 Scientist. 
 
 
 
 Pneumonia—T etanus—Lockjaw—Two Cases. 
 
 In 1908, I was requested by the supervisors of our 
 township to go and see a Miss S., who had been re- 
 ported sick, and who had been under the care of 
 “‘ Scientists ” for some time. I was asked to ascertain 
 whether or not it would be safe and proper to remove 
 her to the hospital, twenty miles away. On examina- 
 tion I found a thin, frail woman, quite ill. Her pulse 
 and temperature were high, and she presented the signs 
 and symptoms of pneumonia, but as is not infrequently 
 the case in this very fatal disease, the patient was able 
 to walk about the room. ‘The treatment this case of 
 pneumonia had had could well be summed up in two 
 words—“ forget it.” I advised against moving the 
 patient, feeling that a twenty-mile ride was out of the 
 question. 
 
 Following my report, the supervisor went out to the 
 house where the patient roomed to make some arrange- 
 ments for taking care of her. Upon his arrival he 
 learned that the practitioners, with two other mem- 
 bers of the church, had taken her away. It was 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 363 
 
 brought out at the inquest that they had dressed her 
 and made her walk five blocks in a foot of snow, and 
 with the mercury in the neighbourhood of zero. 
 Autopsy showed well developed lobar pneumonia in 
 both lungs. | 
 
 We have had two deaths from tetanus following nail 
 wounds in the last twenty years. Both cases were 
 treated by “ Scientists ”’ until the disease was well es- 
 tablished, when, of course, the time for anti-tetanic 
 serum to be of greatest service is past. 
 
 Christian Science in a Hospital. 
 
 A few cases here are getting Christian Science treat- 
 ment. Brief notes concerning the cases follow: 
 
 I. N. G., male, originally admitted in 1916, at the 
 age of forty-eight. Diagnosis—paralysis-agitans. The 
 patient has been gradually getting worse since admis- 
 sion. A Christian Science practitioner visits him every 
 two weeks. 
 
 IJ. E. F., male, aged sixty-seven. Admitted Janu- 
 ary 13, 1923. Diagnosis—tabes dorsalis (locomotor 
 ataxia). Definite locomotor gait; uses wheel chair; 
 has urinary incontinence. Practitioner visits him 
 irregularly. 
 
 Ill. E. Y., aged fifty-six, female. Admitted No- 
 vember 2, 1922, through Department Charities. Had 
 cerebral hemorrhage three years ago with resulting 
 paralysis of left arm and leg. There is marked con- 
 tracture of the left hand. Has practitioner weekly. 
 
 IV. B. K., aged thirty-three, female. Admitted 
 October 8, 1923. Cerebral hemorrhage in 1920, with 
 paralysis of left side, arm and leg. Wassermann four 
 plus. Can get about slightly. Also has interstitial 
 nephritis. Practitioner weekly. 
 
864 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 V. E. R. W., admitted June 1, 1922, through De- 
 partment of Charities. Diagnosis—chronic arthritis 
 deformans. Has practitioner weekly. 
 
 VI. V. M. W., aged thirty-nine, male. Diagnosis— 
 tabes dorsalis. Wassermann four plus. Definite ataxic 
 gait; gets Christian Science treatment weekly. Re- 
 fused antisyphilitic treatment. About November 28, 
 1923, this patient had an acute osteomyelitis of right 
 index finger which suppurated. He would not come to 
 the office for treatment until we threatened him with a 
 prolonged stay in our psychopathic ward. The first 
 joint had already suppurated out when we began to 
 care for him. 
 
 VII. J. M. F., male, aged fifty-two. Admitted July 
 2, 1923. Was a committed patient sent to us by Psy- 
 chopathic Court, with a diagnosis of presenile deterior- 
 ation. When he arrived here we had to feed him with 
 a tube and he had incontinence of both urine and 
 feces. He was paroled to his daughter on August 
 11, 1923, for the purpose of getting Christian Science 
 treatment. He was returned to us September 11, 
 1923, in very poor physical condition, and died October 
 17, 1923. 
 
 All of these cases have been under medical observa- 
 tion throughout their sojourn in this institution, and 
 while the authorities have permitted the Christian 
 Science healers a free hand in their treatments, there 
 has not been the slightest indication in any case that 
 this mental treatment has in any way benefitted the 
 bodily ailments from which the patients suffer. Of 
 course, this statement is entirely superfluous, as no one 
 possessed of a grain of common sense believes that such 
 organic diseases as are here enumerated are ever bene- 
 fitted by any such humbug. 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 365 
 
 From a City Health Commissioner. 
 
 I consider Christian Science one of the greatest men- 
 aces to public health. I will quote you one or two 
 definite instances: 
 
 I. Scarlet Fever. On February 6, 1920, June S—— 
 was taken sick with scarlet fever. On February 13th, 
 Alaine developed the first symptoms of the disease. 
 On February 21st, Genevieve was taken sick with the 
 same disease. Mrs. S. was the Christian Science prac- 
 titioner treating these cases, which were not reported 
 to the Health Department as required by the state 
 regulations, pertaining to the control of scarlet fever. 
 I called at the home and was informed that the children 
 were not suffering from any contagious disease, and 
 was refused admittance to examine them. The home 
 was placed under absolute quarantine and the father 
 summoned to court. He was defended by a lawyer. In 
 the court they granted me permission to inspect the 
 premises. 
 
 When I arrived at the house with the father and the 
 lawyer I was informed that they did not give me per- 
 mission to examine the children, only the premises. I 
 informed them that they were all under quarantine and 
 the father and the lawyer would not be permitted to 
 leave the premises until after I was convinced there was 
 no contagious disease there. I was then given permis- 
 sion to examine the children and found three well devel- 
 oped cases of scarlet fever. On March 2nd, Alaine 
 died, and the certificate was signed by Dr. A. C. R., the 
 cause of death, scarlet fever. Dr. R. was summoned 
 into court, prosecuted and fined one hundred dollars 
 and costs for not reporting a contagious disease. He 
 was defended by the same lawyer that Mr. S. had pre- 
 viously. You will note that the first case of scarlet 
 
366 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 fever was in this home unquarantined and the contacts 
 coming and going from the sick room at their pleasure 
 for eighteen days. 
 
 From a City Health Commissioner. 
 
 II. Diphtheria. A case of diphtheria, school girl, 
 the mother informing the school nurse several times 
 that the child was not sick. A school teacher boarding 
 at this home notified me that she thought there was a 
 case of diphtheria in the house. I called at the home. 
 The mother told me that the child was not sick and 
 refused to have me examine the child, although the 
 glands of the neck were very much swollen and the 
 child almost unable to open her mouth. Another school 
 child in the family had a membrane extending about 
 one-quarter of an inch out of the nostrils. I immedi- 
 ately placed this family in quarantine for diphtheria, 
 excluded the boarder from the home, and took cultures 
 from another child who was attending school during 
 the nine days these cases were not reported. His cul- 
 ture being negative, he was allowed to change his resi- 
 dence in conformity with the state ruling. When these 
 cases were ready for release, cultures were taken which 
 were positive to diphtheria. These cases were being 
 treated by a Christian Science practitioner. 
 
 III. Smallpox. In November and December, 1920, 
 an epidemic of smallpox occurred, and the local Board 
 of Health issued orders that all unvaccinated children 
 should be excluded from schools until the epidemic 
 subsided. There was considerable opposition on the 
 part of the Christian Scientists. A reader of the Chris- 
 tian Science brought suit for $25,000.00 damages 
 against the individual members of the School Board, 
 the principal and the superintendent of schools for 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 367 
 
 excluding his child, who was not vaccinated against 
 smallpox. After many continuances this case was 
 finally brought to trial. The court ruled against the 
 Christian Scientists. 
 
 We have many cases where children suffering from 
 chicken pox have returned to school not fully recov- 
 ered from the disease, these cases not being reported. 
 The mothers explain the diseases as strawberry rash, 
 flea bites, and mosquito bites (during the winter 
 months). 
 
 Many cases of other communicable diseases, as 
 whooping cough, measles, German measles, etc., are 
 discovered by the school nurses in homes of Christian 
 Scientists; quite naturally the practitioners do not 
 recognise them. 
 
 The objection made to a placard on the house is that 
 it is suggestive and others get the disease from reading 
 the sign by thinking disease, not by the exposure. 
 
 Diphtheria—M alnutrition—C onsum ption—Cancer. 
 
 While Coroner of County, it became my duty 
 to investigate the following cases. In each instance my 
 office furnished the death certificate. 
 
 I. Diphtheria. <A child, three years of age, died 
 while under the treatment of a Christian Science prac- 
 titioner. The healer visited the home three times daily 
 at two dollars per visit, and gave three absent treat- 
 ments each day at one dollar per treatment. Within a 
 few hours of the end, physicians were called in, but 
 were unable at that late stage to secure any favourable 
 results from antitoxin. 
 
 II. Malnutrition in a child, aged one year. This 
 patient received only absent treatments, the practi- 
 tioner working from a distance of forty-five miles. 
 
 
 
368 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 The child had been poorly nourished from birth, and 
 had suffered from eczema. Instead of rational feeding 
 as could have been had under the direction of a physi- 
 cian, the baby fought it out alone—and lost. 
 
 III. Death in this instance was from slow consump- 
 tion. The patient was the mother of three children. 
 No precautions to protect the other members of the 
 family were observed throughout her illness. A Chris- 
 tian Science practitioner had the case for more than a 
 year. The healer was very arrogant to the coroner 
 who signed the death certificate. 
 
 IV. Cancer. This woman was an accomplished 
 musician. Her death was a great loss to the commun- 
 ity. She was attended by a Christian Science practi- 
 tioner from the beginning of her illness. Autopsy 
 showed a cancer of the large bowel. The patient suf- 
 fered greatly for three years before she succumbed. 
 
 Mental Obstetrics—Doctor Repudiated. 
 
 Five years ago I attended one of the leading Chris- 
 tian Science women of this town through her first con- 
 finement. She explained that her neighbours would 
 doubtless criticise her, if she did not have a doctor 
 present. She was an old primipara, and the birth was 
 slow and difficult. It became necessary to resort to in- 
 strumental interference under general anesthesia. The 
 case was long drawn out, and her complaints of suffer- 
 ing were bitter and vociferous. In fact, her behaviour 
 throughout the ordeal was unrestrained and hysterical. 
 After it was all over both she and her husband boasted 
 that she “ got along fine and had no pain.” 
 
 Their explanation of the use of forceps was that, 
 being a doctor, I felt it necessary to make a bluff at 
 doing something. Her nurse was one of those para- 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 369 
 
 doxical creatures—‘ Christian Science nurse.” Why 
 “nurse ”’? To most of us, at least, “nurse” suggests 
 sickness or the helpless condition of infancy. 
 
 Ovarian Cyst—Operation Refused—Faial 
 Termination. 
 
 This case is that of my brother’s widow, Mrs. H. 
 The poor woman passed away in October, 1923, and 
 was truly a martyr to this damnable hypnotic influence 
 —Christian Science. She was assured by three compe- 
 tent surgeons that her tumour could be safely removed 
 by means of an operation and that there was no reason 
 why she could not be restored to health. 
 
 The experience that I have just gone through is the 
 most heart-rending and tragic I have ever been called 
 upon to face. In fact, I feel so strongly concerning it 
 that I would be not only willing, but glad to bring suit 
 against the two practitioners who were guilty of crim- 
 inal negligence and responsible for the death of this 
 poor woman, if I could have sufficient support. As the 
 patient lay in bed both before and after her death, one 
 would think that she had a pillow upon her stomach 
 under the covering, the tumour was so large. 
 
 Mrs. H. died at a so-called Christian Science sani- 
 tarium conducted by a Mrs. H. S. D., who, by the way, 
 is not a very good advertisement for Christian Science, 
 as she, herself, has a goiter of immense size. Mrs. H. 
 told me that she had suggested to both her practitioners 
 that she wished to have an operation performed, and 
 that one of them said: “ You ought to be ashamed of 
 yourself. The only reason you have not been healed is 
 because of your lack of faith.” The other said: ‘“ Of 
 course, you know and I know that the removal of the 
 ‘tumour by means of an operation will not solve your 
 
370 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 problem, as the real cause of your trouble is not the 
 tumour, but is in your thought.” 
 
 The sick woman’s position was both pitiful and 
 tragic. She was torn between the desire for relief and 
 a haunting fear that should she yield to material aid, 
 even to the slightest degree, God would forsake her. I, 
 myself, felt almost like a criminal and a traitor, both 
 to the memory of my departed brother, and to his 
 widowed helpmeet. I could only confess my help- 
 lessness, aS only a resort to physical force could 
 have torn their prey from these two vultures in 
 human form. 
 
 It was with inexpressible sadness and regret that I 
 was compelled to confess myself almost without hope 
 of being able to do anything further to help my broth- 
 er’s widow. ‘This feeling of helplessness was, I think, 
 the most agonising feature of the whole wretched 
 baffling situation. I brought every possible influence to 
 bear upon Mrs. H. that I felt would have any weight, 
 but failed miserably at every turn. She was so com- 
 pletely under the domination and control of this in- 
 iquitous power that she seemed to have lost all confi- 
 dence in even her best friends. 
 
 I implored the resident practitioner to permit an 
 operation. She replied by letter, from which I quote: 
 “Of course, from my standpoint, I don’t see an oper- 
 ation, and could not advise it. Is it fair to expect it 
 of me?” In a little footnote to another letter under 
 date of October 20, 1923, this same practitioner said: 
 “Sent for Dr. W. for a diagnosis. I believe I had for- 
 gotten to tell you about it.” On the next day, October 
 21, 1923, this poor woman died, having been hounded 
 to an untimely death. The final word for her is now 
 graven on a tablet in the cemetery. 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 371 
 
 Mental Obstetrics—Two Deaths. 
 
 Seven years ago I was consulted by a young married 
 woman who was expecting her first baby. A prelim- 
 inary survey of conditions revealed the fact that the 
 patient had a somewhat deformed pelvis. Though the 
 condition was not marked, yet it might mean unusual 
 difficulty in the case. I asked that she go to a hospital, 
 as a matter of added safety, and I would care for her 
 there. 
 
 Not hearing from the woman again till one day, 
 meeting her sister, I made inquiry. The sister told me 
 that the husband’s mother was a Christian Scientist 
 and that they had decided to engage a practitioner of 
 that faith. When the time came they hired their healer. 
 The labour was prolonged. The healer read and 
 prayed, telephoned, read and prayed, still no baby. 
 Natural delivery, it developed, was impossible, and 
 this unfortunate young woman died in agony, and 
 along with her died her half-born babe. The last I 
 ever heard of this case was that the husband was pre- 
 paring to bring suit against the healer and his own 
 mother for causing the death of his wife and baby. 
 
 Mental Obstetrics. 
 
 A few days ago I received a hurry-up call from an 
 old time member of my clientele. The call was occa- 
 sioned by cries of distress coming from the top apart- 
 ment, occupied by my friend’s tenant. The woman in 
 question was known as a confirmed Christian Scientist, 
 and for nine months her faith had battled to repudiate 
 her true condition. 
 
 My friend found her tenant entirely nude sitting on 
 a commode, and evidently in great distress, constantly 
 repeating: “Oh, God, give me faith to move my bow- 
 
872 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 els.” My friend suggested calling a doctor, but the 
 woman, between exclamations of pain, said: “‘ No, get 
 a Christian Science practitioner.” Presently the 
 woman screeched, ‘‘God has answered my prayer— 
 my bowels are moving, ouc H! ” On the heels of 
 the woman’s scream came another cry from the bowl 
 beneath, and my friend, sensing the situation, took 
 matters into her own hands and sent me a hurry-up 
 call. Impelled by common sense—common to all ani- 
 mals except Christian Scientists fully matured in non- 
 sense—my friend rescued the unwelcome baby from an 
 early demise in the sewer. The Eddyite woman now 
 consented to allow herself to be placed in the hands of 
 a surgeon. A laceration of the second degree required 
 stitches, and this matter was attended to on the fourth 
 day under local anesthesia. Toward the finish of the 
 operation, the effect of the drug wearing off, the patient 
 began giving herself mental treatments. She repeated 
 over and over: ‘“ God is my light.” Sandwiched be- 
 tween these expressions of divine metaphysics were a 
 goodly number of lusty “ ouches”’ accurately timed to 
 the needle punctures through the skin. After all this, 
 the patient has relapsed into that vacuous mental state 
 which accepts at face value Mrs. Eddy’s solemn decla- 
 ration that: ‘To abolish marriage and maintain gen- 
 eration is possible in Christian Science.” 
 
 
 
 Mastoid Abscess—Meningitis—Fatal. 
 
 A Christian Science nurse, by the name of P. ; 
 sent for me to “ diagnose”’ a case. The ‘‘ case”? was 
 that of a little girl eight years of age who had been 
 troubled with a ‘‘running ear” for several weeks. 
 Several attacks of earache ending in a “ gathering ” in 
 
 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3878 
 
 her ear had been “ healed ” by Christian Science. This 
 attack, however, was not following the beaten path to 
 harmony. The ear refused to break as usual, and the 
 “nurse,” still possessing a little remnant of human 
 sympathy, was distressed to see the “little thing 
 suffer so.” 
 
 My visit was made in the evening, and I was asked 
 not to let the child know that I was a doctor. I found 
 the little patient in a dimly-lighted room with every- 
 body going about on tip-toe, and carrying on conversa- 
 tion in whispers. The child cried out upon the least 
 disturbance. The condition was plainly that of mas- 
 toid abscess complicating middle ear disease. I urged 
 the parents to have an operation done that very night. 
 They said they would think it over and let me know. 
 Near midnight of the same evening the father tele- 
 phoned me that they had decided to continue the 
 “same treatment,” that is, treatment by a Christian 
 Science practitioner. 
 
 Seven days later, an undertaker came to my office to 
 secure a death certificate for the little child. From 
 him I learned the subsequent history of the case. 
 There had been delirium, stupour, and convulsions 
 followed by profound unconsciousness. In this con- 
 dition the little sufferer had slept away. I refused to 
 sign a death certificate, as I considered this death un- 
 justifiable homicide, and a very proper one for the 
 coroner to investigate. 
 
 A Bachelor’s “ Secret.” 
 
 Seeing your open letter in our State Medical Journal, 
 I am led to reveal a personal experience that is some- 
 thing more than the report of a case. 
 
374 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 It seems but yesterday, but measured in years it 
 was a long time ago when Christian Science was more 
 of a novelty than it is today. Until the blighting in- 
 fluence of this Occidental Yoga came into my life, to 
 me it had been just another ‘“‘ metaphysical ” bubble 
 engrafted upon an old and shattered philosophy. Lit- 
 tle had I dreamed that my future was to be profoundly 
 influenced by the teachings of a notorious “* Mother 
 God” whose most prominent characteristic was a 
 mental twist. 
 
 As I recall the events of the struggle to establish 
 myself in my chosen profession, medicine, there come 
 a fullness in my throat and a dimming of my eyes, 
 which tell me that the sweet and hallowed influence 
 that helped me then, is with me still. 
 
 She, who had promised to share the uncertain future 
 of a medical student, and the hardships of a young 
 physician’s life, was my aid, my courage, and her 
 happiness, my ambition. 
 
 My start was slow. The means of impressing a com- 
 munity, such as a horse and carriage, were beyond my 
 reach; however, there came a time when my meager 
 income gave promise of providing enough for two. In 
 the meantime a shadow fell upon our hopes. Failing 
 health and strength became more and more apparent. 
 Modesty withheld from me the true condition, and loy- 
 alty to me as her ideal physician restrained her from 
 seeking the advice of another. 
 
 Here enters Christian Science with its siren promise 
 of certain relief from all fear of cancer of the breast, or 
 of any other undesirable and inharmonious “ state of 
 mind.” At length, when this impossible situation re- 
 solved, conditions were beyond control. They buried 
 my sweetheart, and with her the best in my life. 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3875 
 
 I have attained what the world calls success. My 
 name is a familiar one among those who have dedicated 
 themselves to the relief of human misery. I am some- 
 times asked why I choose to live alone with only my 
 profession to give me solace. I am not alone. There 
 is always with me a beautiful character—an angel face 
 radiant with enduring love for me. But my children, 
 they are only dream children. They have no mother. 
 She was stolen away by a thief in the night and the 
 name of that thief is Christian Science. This is my 
 “‘ case ’’—my lifetime secret. 
 
 Uterine Fibroid—Surgery Required. 
 
 In the spring of 1902, there came out of the west a 
 man of fifty-eight, who was born in a New England 
 state in September, 1844. With this man came a 
 woman of forty-two, the mother of five children. From 
 a far western state they came on a pilgrimage to the 
 “Hub of the Universe”’ to secure, at first hand, the 
 ministrations of a famous healer who was then coming 
 into great estate. This woman from the west was the 
 lawful wife of the man of New England birth, and it 
 was she in whose behalf the pilgrimage was undertaken, 
 being afflicted with what mere medical men term a 
 fibroid tumour of the womb. The husband, the son of 
 an unnatural mother, had said to his good wife, “‘ We'll 
 go home to mother and tell her our troubles.” They 
 went; they told their troubles. They were informed 
 they had no troubles. The woman bled and bled, and 
 after several months of bleeding with nothing the mat- 
 ter, the husband, this son of a healer, told his Ma that 
 they were through with the wonders of the “‘ Hub ” and 
 were going back west. Yes, “told,” as he had never 
 
376 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 learned to write,—‘ told” this same mother that he 
 was going of his own accord this time, instead of her 
 sending him away, as she had done when he was a baby 
 boy not at her knee, but in her way—under foot as 
 it were. 
 
 At a great city midway between the east and the 
 west, this suffering, bleeding, disappointed daughter- 
 in-law of the discoverer of the only system of healing 
 that the earth has ever beheld in perfected and copy- 
 righted form, stopped off to receive the benefits of real 
 science, directed by normal brains. Here three weeks 
 accomplished what senseless jargon for three months 
 had utterly failed to do. Once more they two, the out- 
 cast, illiterate son and the wife, now minus several 
 pounds of tumour, resumed their westward journey to 
 their own prairie home surroundings, there to enjoy 
 some of the tainted money that one of the joint authors 
 of this book compelled the inner ring at the headquar- 
 ters of “‘ Principle ” to disgorge. 
 
 Cancer of the Breast. 
 
 Mrs. X., a Christian Science practitioner for more 
 than thirty years, was admitted to my service, referred 
 by Dr. F. G. She had had a scirrhous carcinoma of the 
 breast for several years, during which time she treated 
 it herself, and had it treated by other practitioners. 
 But in spite of their great faith it persisted and contin- 
 ued to grow and finally became painful, and lumps 
 formed under the arm. | 
 
 Through the advice of relatives she sought the aid 
 of a physician. <A radical operation was performed, 
 but we knew that under the circumstances it was too 
 late to do much good. I have no doubt that if this 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 377 
 
 patient had been operated upon when she first noticed 
 the lump, she could have been cured, and I am equally 
 convinced that inasmuch as there was a lot of metas- 
 tases, she will have a recurrence which will be chalked 
 up as a failure against surgery. After the operation 
 was performed I was told by the patient and another 
 Christian Science practitioner that my services were 
 no longer required, as I had done all that a surgeon 
 could do for her, and from then on she put her faith in 
 the Lord. She made a good recovery. This case is a 
 recent one. 
 
 Lead Poisoning. 
 
 The following may be of interest to you in your col- 
 lection of Christian Science stories, as indicating the 
 peculiar process of mind that goes to make a Christian 
 Scientist. Mr. A. came to me, some years ago, suffer- 
 ing with severe abdominal pains of long duration, with 
 a train of other symptoms which no physician had been 
 able to relieve. I referred him to a colleague, as I am 
 a throat specialist, who very promptly made the diag- 
 nosis of lead poisoning. The patient was employed in 
 a large electrical concern, handled much lead, his hands 
 held on to the lead and he ate quantities in conveying 
 food to his mouth. 
 
 Treatment was entirely successful. Without the 
 diagnosis and treatment, he would have become para- 
 lysed, and surely the skill of the doctor saved his life. 
 In spite of this personal experience, Mr. A. is a devout 
 Christian Scientist, and influences those whom he can 
 reach, to believe as he does. 
 
 While the above is not strictly a report of the evil 
 that follows adherence to Christian Science, it may be 
 useful as indicating the base ingratitude and mental 
 
878 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 perversion of one of the adherents of that cult. You 
 may use these facts as you have indicated in your letter 
 to the Illinois Medical Journal. 
 
 Immense Abdominal Tumour in Christian Science 
 Healer—Operation. 
 
 The enclosed photographs tell the story of the trou- 
 ' bles of a Christian Science practitioner living on 
 Sheridan Road, Chicago. 
 
 This woman was, and is a popular healer of this cult. 
 However, for a period of seventeen months she was in- 
 capacitated by an abdominal tumour, which was too 
 much for a regiment of healers. She came under my 
 care at the A Hospital, and had her tumour re- 
 moved surgically. She made an uneventful recovery, 
 and is now once more engaged in the lucrative business 
 of telling people that ailments are in their prs and 
 nowhere else. | 
 
 The photographs were taken at the time of the oper- 
 ation, and while the healer was snoring lustily under 
 the Cente of a material remedy, ether, that made 
 her insensible to the knife. The first picture was 
 taken just before the operation was begun, and the 
 second shows what was left of the patient immediately 
 after ninety pounds of tumour had been separated 
 from her. These photographs were taken because this 
 tumour was so enormous. In these days of watchful- 
 ness on the part of the medical profession, we seldom 
 see such large tumours. These photographs are also 
 conclusive evidence that this healer’s truth and veracity 
 are not of very high order, for even before she was well 
 enough to leave the hospital she began claiming that 
 her illness was all a mistake, and that in reality there 
 had been no tumour. 
 
 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3879 
 
 A ppendicitis—Peritonitis—Death. 
 
 Three years ago, a young woman of-thirty fell sud- 
 denly ill. She was a Christian Science believer, and 
 her “error” was recognised as a passing fancy of 
 ‘‘mortal mind,” which mental treatment could chase 
 away with the greatest ease. The young woman gave 
 herself the common garden variety of Christian Science 
 treatment, but the belief of pain in her abdomen was 
 stronger than her faith. 
 
 A practitioner, more deeply intrenched in divine 
 science, was then placed in command of the situation, 
 but the pain and distress in the abdomen would not be 
 denied. Vomiting, fever, and great prostration drove 
 the wary practitioner to cover, and a friendly M.D. 
 was appealed to for a “diagnosis.” This particular 
 M.D. stands weil with the Eddy group, and his signa- 
 ture is available whenever a deluded follower of 
 “Mother Eddy” passes on. The accommodating 
 M.D. affixed his obliging signature as usual, naming 
 typhoid fever as the cause of the young Eddyite’s dis- 
 harmony. The health officials, however, thought the 
 diagnosis improbable, as the illness had been very 
 short. The coroner’s office was asked to ascertain the 
 cause of death. An autopsy uncovered peritonitis from 
 a ruptured, gangrenous appendix. 
 
 This unsuccessful attempt to hide the failure of 
 Christian Science treatment of real disease shows to 
 what extent an unprincipled doctor will go in order to 
 hide manslaughter at the hands of equally unprincipled 
 practitioners of a fake healing system. 
 
 Typhoid Fever—Death from Perforation. 
 
 I remember very distinctly, a few years ago, an 
 emergency call to see a young woman who had been 
 
880 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 sick for some time with typhoid fever. The patient, a 
 girl of eighteen, had been under the care of Christian 
 Science practitioners for several weeks when, her con- 
 dition becoming alarming, some of the more rational 
 members of her family sent a hurry-up call for med- 
 ical assistance. 
 
 I found the young lady in extremis. Her abdomen 
 was rigid, distended and extremely tender to pressure. 
 Her pulse was scarcely perceptible and the expression 
 of her face was one of anxiety and great suffering. She 
 had, no doubt, suffered a perforation of the intestine 
 and was nearing the end of her earthly existence 
 through hemorrhage and peritonitis. 
 
 She was past the stage of operation, and died in an 
 hour or so. She had a twin sister who, during the time 
 I was in the house, before and after the patient died, 
 frequently went up to her mother and exclaimed, 
 “‘ Isn’t everything lovely? ” 
 
 Diabetes—Coma—Death. 
 
 There is a request in Northwest Medicine for Octo- 
 ber that readers of the journal mentioned who are fa- 
 miliar with cases in which favourable results could 
 reasonably have been expected to follow the use of 
 proper medical or surgical measures, but in which 
 serious injury resulted through reliance on Christian 
 Science, shall write reports of such cases. 
 
 This is the story of Mildred R., aged twelve, living 
 at home with her father and mother. She had 
 diabetes, was on the insulin treatment and getting 
 along fairly well. Of course, insulin is not a cure 
 for diabetes, and leaves much to be desired in the 
 way of treatment for that disease. Mildred did not 
 always follow her diet as she should, and often ate 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3881 
 
 things she ought not to eat. Neither did she like a 
 hypodermic injection of insulin before each meal, three 
 times a day. But in spite of all this, she was getting 
 along fairly well. 
 
 One day a lodge brother of her father’s was at the 
 house and told the usual story about a woman he once 
 knew that was sick, and the doctors were not helping 
 her at all, etc. This woman tried Christian Science and 
 the next day she was well. Just like that. So Mildred 
 decided that she wanted to try ‘ Christian Science,” 
 and her father took her to a neighbouring town where 
 one of these ladies lived and Mildred saw the Christian 
 Science lady. The Eddyite told Mildred that she 
 should discontinue the use of the insulin and she could 
 eat anything she wanted to. Of course, this was joyful 
 news to Mildred, and she immediately went down town 
 and ate four ham sandwiches. That evening, at the 
 picture show, Mildred was so sick that her father had 
 to hire a taxicab to take her home. The next day she 
 ate a big dinner, all she wanted, and she went into 
 diabetic coma that night (Thursday) and died at 9 
 A. M. the following Saturday, October 4. 
 
 Pulmonary Consumption—Death. 
 
 This patient came under my observation in Septem- 
 ber, 1923. She had spent a number of months in the 
 Municipal Sanitarium because of beginning tubercu- 
 losis of the lungs. The rational treatment she received 
 at the sanitarium had caused arrest of her lung trouble, 
 and she appeared to be on the high road to recovery. 
 Six months later, I saw this woman again. She had 
 come under the influence of Christian Science, and had 
 obeyed instructions to disregard all hygienic rules 
 which had been laid down for her at the sanitarium. 
 
382 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Discretion and regularity in habits of diet, sleep, rest 
 and exercise were ignored. 
 
 Relying on the constant repetition of assurance that 
 she was getting along “‘ splendidly,” she was persuaded 
 that her recovery would soon be complete. Every 
 physician, of course, knows that patients afflicted with 
 pulmonary tuberculosis are characteristically hopeful, 
 and with what regularity they become easy prey for 
 the charlatan. This patient could not see that she was 
 going down hill rapidly, and she took to her bed only 
 when she was too weak to hold her head up. 
 
 Upon my arrival I was informed that I was wanted 
 to “diagnose” the case. I assured the family that I 
 would do nothing of the kind. As far as the diagnosis 
 was concerned, their ‘‘ healer ’” knew perfectly well that 
 the woman was about to die of consumption, and that 
 any of their neighbours could make a diagnosis for 
 them. 
 
 The coroner’s physician performed his official duty 
 to society, and a burial permit was issued as in the case 
 of any other mortal under like circumstances. Rob- 
 bing the dead, in my opinion, is a highly commendable 
 way of getting money in comparison with robbing a 
 consumptive of his only chance to live. 
 
 Gall-Stones—Surgeon’s Hypodermic Called for. 
 
 My professional services were called for in the case 
 of an elderly woman who, for six hours, had been suf- 
 fering from a pain so severe that the Scientists were 
 unable to get the better of it. A daughter assured me 
 that I was wanted to administer a hypodermic and for 
 no other purpose, as they were Christian Scientists and 
 could handle the situation mentally after the belief in 
 pain had been lulled by an injection of morphine. 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3883 
 
 The patient was delirious with pain, and anyone who 
 has ever suffered from gall-stone colic, will agree that 
 a well marked attack calls for vigourous treatment. 
 Under such circumstances, a ‘‘ hypodermic” for the 
 pain in the common run of human beings, and for the 
 belief of pain in Christian Scientists, ‘is the proper 
 thing. 
 
 I administered the coveted ‘ hypodermic,” and in 
 twenty minutes had the dear old lady snoring peace- 
 fully. She went to sleep fighting the idea that the relief 
 was really due to the opiate I had given her. 
 
 The next day I was sent for again, but this time I 
 washed out the patient’s stomach with a rubber tube 
 which I carry about with me for that purpose. The 
 result was just as satisfactory as before. The passing 
 of the stomach tube, however, seemed to be rather dis- 
 tasteful to grandma. I have not been sent for since. 
 
 Pneumonia—Christian Science Treatment—Fatal. 
 
 I know a family who are Christian Science adher- 
 ents. When one of the children, a son, became ill of 
 pneumonia, a practitioner of the Christian Science 
 faith was called in. The local healer proceeded to 
 administer treatment with such success that great im- 
 provement was noticed, even by two older sisters, who 
 were school teachers. This sort of “ improvement ” 
 progressed until the boy became unconscious, when 
 the need of more efficient talent was realised. Accord- 
 ingly a more effective practitioner, a more calloused 
 healer, was called from a distance at $5.00 a call plus 
 telephone charges. This distant lady practitioner 
 urged frequent calls, and each time over the multi- 
 party country line very encouraging messages were 
 heard by their neighbours, for example, “‘I can see 
 
384 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 “'L.” very plainly. How well he looks.” ‘“ What 
 wonderful improvement,” etc. So, for two days, ‘ L.” 
 continued to “‘ improve.” I felt that near the end an 
 “S. O. S.” would come, in order to get a death certifi- 
 cate. I advised my telephone attendant that I would 
 not accept a call from there, and if one came, to advise 
 them to get some other doctor. 
 
 While I was making a call at a neighbour’s, the 
 expected ‘‘ doctor’s call ” was hurried over the country 
 line (which was a signal for everybody on the line to 
 listen), but it was Dr. Christian Science they still 
 wanted, and soon service was issued out to a dying boy 
 seventy miles away. The family where I was, heard 
 the following: “I can see “LL.” very plainly; he is 
 doing very nicely. You are unnecessarily alarmed, and 
 unless you have faith, he will die. I fear your faith is 
 not strong enough. Have you had anything to do with 
 that M.D. outfit? If you have, the boy is gone.” As 
 was expected by those who visited there, the boy passed 
 away, but, still having faith, the seventy-mile-off city 
 was again called and informed of the outcome. Mrs. 
 Practitioner said: ‘‘ The Lord knows best. “ L.’’ has 
 been called home. What a blessing! ” ‘‘ You had 
 better call a physician.” “S.O.S8.” Ting-a-ling-ling. 
 “‘ Have the doctor come to ‘C’ at once.” They were 
 informed that this doctor would not come. My col- 
 league was called and responded. Upon his arrival he 
 found the boy dead. 
 
 Heart Disease—Diabetes. 
 
 An old lady, aged fifty-nine, Jewish widow, afflicted 
 with a marked mitral regurgitation, myocardial insuf- 
 ficiency, diabetes and a large uterine fibroid had been 
 under my care for six months or a year. I explained 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 385 
 
 to the family that all I could do was to keep her com- 
 fortable, prolong her life a little, but otherwise medi- 
 cine could do nothing for her. One day her brother 
 came to see me. He asked me whether Christian 
 Science would do his sister any good2 I answered, ° 
 “No, but if she follows a healer’s advice she will die 
 much quicker than otherwise.’”’ He considered a mo- 
 ment and then asked, “ Did you ever notice that pic- 
 ture on the wall facing the bed? ” I answered, “ Yes, 
 it is one of the most beautiful pictures of the Venus 
 de Milo that I have ever seen.”’ He then replied, 
 “Well, those fools (her other brother and his wife) 
 had that picture placed there where she could always 
 see it, and if she will only look at it long enough and 
 concentrate her thoughts sufficiently and follow the 
 prayers of the “ healer ” she will attain a like beauty 
 and symmetry of form.” 
 
 As a later history, I will state that she did not con- 
 centrate either long or intensely enough and the dia- 
 betes, aided by the indiscretions in diet permitted, or 
 rather commanded by Christian Science, finished the 
 job long before any signs of the symmetry of Venus 
 were apparent. 
 
 Rat Poison—Intestinal Obsiruction—Consum ption. 
 
 I was called to see a two-year-old child who had 
 arisen early and had eaten several crackers covered 
 with arsenic, which had been scattered about the 
 kitchen for rat-bait. The mother and grandmother, 
 both Eddyites, insisted that no harm could come to the 
 child. The father much preferred the services of a 
 physician to those of the coroner, and he ordered 
 proper treatment for his child. 
 
 I administered the antidote which every medical stu- 
 
886 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 dent is required to know. The child escaped with its 
 life, although it had a close call. The grandmother 
 telephoned me that the child was all right, that it had 
 been in no danger at any time, except from the lack of 
 harmony that had been brought about by the activities 
 of an M.D. with all his useless fuss. 
 
 The parents, some months later, went away on a 
 visit, leaving this same child in care of a “ practi- 
 tioner.” The child became acutely ill with bowel ob- 
 struction. There had been signs of partial obstruction 
 following the ingestion of the rat poison, constipation 
 at times being almost absolute, probable due to the 
 healing of intestinal ulceration with consequent nar- 
 rowing of the caliber of the intestine. The grandfather 
 came to the rescue this time and called in a colleague 
 of mine. The doctor found the child stretched out on 
 the dining-room table and the practitioner reading to it 
 from Science and Health. ‘The child was rushed to the 
 hospital and once more saved from death. A subse- 
 quent attack of the same trouble, neglected in the same 
 manner, resulted fatally, the child dying on’ the way to 
 the hospital, in spite of repeated quotations from the 
 “little book,” that there was nothing the matter with 
 the baby. 
 
 The mother of the baby, severat years before these 
 events occurred, was one of my “steady neurasthen- 
 ics.” About once a month she would report for ex- 
 amination for suspected pelvic trouble, which she never 
 had. After a couple of years of this, one day she came 
 in and reported that she had been miraculously healed 
 of her error. 
 
 As an unfortunate sequel to this “ miracle” in her 
 case, another tragedy in the family occurred. Her son, 
 having reported to me for examination and having pre- 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3887 
 
 sented a classic picture of moderately advanced pul- 
 monary tuberculosis, was placed under the sole care of 
 a Christian Science practitioner. In due time this 
 bright and promising boy was laid to rest in the ceme- 
 tery, which from all outward appearances was highly 
 satisfactory to his mother. What a strange and un- 
 natural thing is “ Christian Science”? Child killing 
 in the name of “ divine science”’! 
 
 Scarlet Fever—Diphtheria—Meningitis. 
 
 Among a considerable number of experiences with 
 fatal issues in families of Christian Scientists, I am 
 quoting the following case as illustrative of the fanat- 
 ical attitude assumed by some of the devotees of this 
 so-called religion. 
 
 A prosperous automobile tire distributor brought his 
 seven-year-old boy to my office, in 1920. He told me 
 that his boy did not seem to be doing well. The child 
 was extremely edematous throughout his entire body 
 and had some dropsy. Upon examination, I found that 
 he had hemorrhagic nephritis of an extreme degree. 
 The further history elicited that the child had had an 
 untreated rash, with sore throat, which, in all proba- 
 bility, was scarlet fever, some four weeks previously. 
 The father simply stated that they had not felt the 
 need of sending for a physician for the preceding acute 
 illness—without any further explanation. 
 
 One year later, on Sunday morning, I was called to 
 the home of this man to see the other child in the fam- 
 ily—a girl of five years. Upon examination, I found 
 that the child had a membrane lining the pharynx, 
 nasopharynx and both nostrils. A direct smear, which 
 was made immediately, corroborated the clinical diag- 
 nosis of diphtheria. Upon inquiry as to the where- 
 
388 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 abouts of the boy whom I had treated for nephritis, I 
 was told that he had been buried on the preceding day. 
 The history of the boy’s illness was as follows: 
 
 He had been sick for twelve days, and throughout 
 this time under the care of a Christian Science prac- 
 titioner. As he did not improve, on the Wednesday 
 preceding his death, which occurred on Friday, a 
 so-called Christian Science Doctor (a graduate of an 
 extinct grade C school) was called in consultation by 
 the practitioner, and he made a clinical diagnosis of 
 diphtheria. He told the parents that nothing could be 
 done in the way of treatment for the child. The child 
 died forty-eight hours later. 
 
 Upon inquiry as to the whereabouts of the mother, I 
 was told that she was not seeing visitors, and the father 
 later told me she was not feeling very well. Upon my 
 insistence the mother came into the room and to all 
 appearances was very weak and looked as though she 
 had passed through a severe illness. Upon examina- 
 tion of her throat I found a diphtheritic membrane cov- 
 ering both fauces. I informed the father that it would 
 be necessary to give the child and the mother large 
 doses of antitoxin. They consented to the child’s re- 
 ceiving the antitoxin, but it was only after considerable 
 argument that the mother was persuaded to take treat- 
 ment. The main obstacle was a fanatical grandmother 
 on the maternal side, who said she would hold me re- 
 sponsible for any untoward results following the ad- 
 ministration of serum. ‘The father consented to a 
 prophylactic dose of serum, but the grandmother re- 
 fused all interference with what she termed her consti- 
 tutional rights. 
 
 - The child was several months recovering her health. 
 The mother had quite recovered in the course of three 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 389 
 
 weeks. The subsequent history of the family is of 
 some interest in that the father deserted his family a 
 few months later. 
 
 A second experience was in the family of the owner 
 of a chain of restaurants in the city of Chicago. The 
 father of this child is a leader in one of the larger 
 Christian Science churches in Chicago, and from time 
 to time has been known as a reader in the church. I 
 might state incidentally that in each of those restaur- 
 ants there will be found a rack containing Christian 
 Science literature for free distribution, usually along- 
 side the cashier’s desk. 
 
 I was called to the home to see an infant less than a 
 year of age, and found it dying from meningitis. Upon 
 inquiry, I was told that the child had been under the 
 care of a Christian Science practitioner for several days 
 and that the practitioner had suggested that they call 
 in a physician to make a diagnosis. I informed the 
 parents that it would be necessary to do a spinal punc- 
 ture to complete the diagnosis, which privilege was 
 refused, and I was advised that they had not called me 
 in to administer treatment, but that if it became the 
 Lord’s will that the child should die they would call 
 upon me to issue a certificate as to the cause of death. 
 I told them it would be necessary that I report to the 
 Health Department my having seen this case of menin- 
 gitis, but that I would not be in a position to make a 
 report as to the cause of death. I was later informed 
 that the child died about six hours after my visit. 
 
 Acute Urinary Retention—Catheter Resoried to. 
 
 Not long since I was called, in a great hurry, to the 
 home of one of the few Christian Scientists that infest 
 this town. ‘The occasion of this hurried call was the 
 
390 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 fact that the head of the family found himself unable 
 to empty his bladder. The wife said to me: ‘“ Doctor, 
 my husband is out of harmony, and we would like your 
 help until we can heal him mentally.” I found that 
 this follower of Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy 
 had, for twelve hours, been trying to convince himself 
 that his bladder was not overloaded and that he was 
 mistaken in thinking that the condition was becoming 
 unbearable. The patient had been walking the floor 
 with a copy of Science and Health in his hand till he 
 could contain himself no longer. With a catheter I 
 restored him to “ harmony ” in three minutes. 
 
 After drawing a long breath of relief, he delivered 
 himself of the following: “ What a fool I am? I 
 would have been relieved if I had had faith and pa- 
 tience.”’ Several times after that I piped off his dishar- 
 mony with a catheter. Finally, he concluded that the 
 Lord knew best, and accordingly he provided himself 
 with a catheter of his own, and now when his bladder 
 tries to interfere with his harmony he punctures the 
 offending imaginary viscus with a hollow rubber tube, 
 and thus proves the truth of Christian Science, and 
 holds fast to that which is good. 
 
 Consum ption—Death. 
 
 In the course of my professional work, that of the 
 general practice of medicine, I discovered moderately 
 advanced pulmonary tuberculosis in a young woman, 
 Miss W. After making the diagnosis, the patient 
 passed through the hands of two other physicians, and 
 then disappeared from observation. Many months 
 afterward, I was called at midnight by my former 
 patient’s mother, who informed me that her daughter 
 had been under treatment by Christian Scientists for 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 391 
 
 the past six months. A Christian Science nurse was on 
 the case and it was at her suggestion that I was sent for. 
 
 I found the patient in great discomfort, having had 
 a supper of pork chops and fried potatoes prepared for 
 her by her nurse, who was following the instructions of 
 the practitioner in charge. The nurse told me that I 
 could give the patient a hypodermic for her pain. 
 However, I feared the patient, in her weakened con- 
 dition, would never waken from a dose of morphine, so 
 did not follow the direction of the practitioner as 
 relayed to me by the nurse. 
 
 The patient died forty-eight hours later. It was 
 very plain and very obvious what the real motive was 
 back of the requested medical call—a death certificate 
 was about to be needed. 
 
 A ppendicitis—Fatal. 
 
 In answer to a letter published in the Ohio State 
 Medical Journal for October, requesting the informa- 
 tion on cases treated by Christian Science, I wish to 
 submit the following: 
 
 Miss M. D., a newspaper reporter, suffered from 
 chronic appendicitis for some two years to my knowl- 
 edge. She had attacks at the newspaper office in which 
 she would lie across her desk having abdominal pain. 
 When she would feel these attacks coming she would 
 call the practitioner and apply for absent treatment. 
 Some of these attacks were so severe as to require 
 absence from work for various periods of time. Her 
 last attack was the one in which she suffered most, 
 bearing extreme pain all through that day and into the 
 night. The family were calling on the reader for relief, 
 and the reader also made visits in person during this 
 day. After midnight Miss D.’s father said that he 
 
392 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 could not stand this any longer, and insisted that med- 
 ical aid be summoned—at least to relieve pain. About 
 3 A. M. the former family physician was called. He 
 readily diagnosed the condition as appendicitis in 
 acute and very serious form, and advised immediate 
 operation. The family asked for relief of pain, which 
 was partly accomplished by the use of morphine. The 
 physician still insisted on consultation with a surgeon, 
 which was finally agreed to. The surgeon agreed in 
 the diagnosis and also stated that there was very little 
 hope with surgical interference. The patient was put 
 into an ambulance and sent to a hospital, and when she 
 reached it was in a very extreme condition. The sur- 
 geon decided that it was useless to interfere surgically. 
 The patient died in about one-half hour. This girl, up 
 to her last illness, was a picture of health and good 
 spirits. There was no question but what surgical in- 
 terference at any time during the two years or more in 
 which she had the attacks of pain would have cured 
 her by the removal of the offending appendix and would 
 have saved this fine young woman’s life. 
 
 Exophthalmic Goiter—Pneumonia. 
 
 In 1919, during the influenza epidemic, I was called 
 into a Christian Science home where the husband was 
 profoundly ill. The treatment throughout the early 
 part of his “ error ” had been according to the tenets 
 of Christian Science. The patient was evidently very 
 ill, and from the history, his difficulty in breathing and 
 his bad colour, I suspected the grave condition to be 
 pneumonia superimposed upon influenza. 
 
 The patient had had a toxic goiter for a number of 
 years, but had regarded that trouble “ healed,” and 
 had so declared on every occasion. The patient’s eyes, 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3938 
 
 face and neck were typical of exophthalmic goiter. 
 Physical examination showed an extensive pneumonia, 
 and in a very few hours more the disease put an end to 
 his mortal suffering. This man had “ téstified ” times 
 without number that Christian Science had healed him 
 of the fear of what the doctors called goiter. In real- 
 ity, however, this healed(?) goiter was the principal 
 contributing factor in making his pneumonia fatal. 
 
 Empyema Following Lobar Pneumonia. 
 
 I recall the case of a young woman of perhaps thirty 
 years of age, who had been ill for several weeks. From 
 the history I could understand that at the beginning 
 the patient had suffered an attack of pneumonia. The 
 convalescence had been delayed, and instead of gaining 
 strength, as favourable cases do, she grew weaker day 
 by day, had continued fever, and although she tried to 
 go about, her breath was so short and her gait so un- 
 steady it was thought best to call a physician ‘to 
 diagnose ”’ the case. 
 
 I found the patient gasping for breath, her face and 
 body covered with clammy perspiration and with no 
 pulse at the wrist. She displayed the physical signs of 
 empyema, one-half of her chest being filled to the 
 clavicle with pus. She died a few hours afterward. 
 
 Epilepsy. 
 
 A friend of mine has had his home all but broken up 
 through Christian Science. His wife, a woman of sixty, 
 is an epileptic. For the past ten years she has been in 
 “science.” Her fits have continued in spite of her 
 Eddy worship. The fact that her convulsions are true 
 epileptic attacks during which she herself knows 
 nothing of her infirmity, makes it easy for her to be 
 
394 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 persuaded that she has no affliction whatever. It is 
 different with the husband, however, as he is compelled 
 to witness-the convulsive attacks, to hear the dreaded 
 initial cry, to see the frothing at the mouth, the dis- 
 torted features, the snoring, unconscious sleep, and the 
 irascibility upon regaining consciousness. To the hus- 
 band the situation has been very trying, and at last, in 
 desperation, he told his deluded wife that one of two 
 courses was open to her, either to consult a physician 
 or prepare to see him leave home for surroundings 
 where reason is respected. She consented, under this 
 pressure, to ‘‘ take her medicine,’”’ and now for over a 
 year she has not had a single convulsive attack. 
 
 When it is considered that this woman was at one 
 time having as many as three epileptic seizures in a 
 single twenty-four hours, and that after submitting to 
 rational medical treatment, she has been free from such 
 attacks for a year, one would expect to find her cured 
 of her faith in Science. Not so, she says she is in 
 Science, and that she will “ go out ” in Science. 
 
 Goiter. 
 
 On the second day of January, 1921, Master S. B., 
 aged fifteen, was brought to my office literally gasping 
 for breath because of a large goiter that was making 
 pressure on his larynx and trachea. I hurried him to 
 the hospital, a distance of one block, and by the time 
 he was on the operating table he was unconscious. I 
 removed the right lobe of the thyroid encircling two- 
 thirds of the circumference of the larynx and trachea, 
 without an anesthetic of any kind. Just as I put in 
 the last stitch the boy revived sufficiently to show evi- 
 dence of life. The air hunger and exhaustion from an 
 effort to breathe had been so extreme that the boy slept 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 395 
 
 almost continuously for thirty-six hours. We had 
 difficulty in arousing him sufficiently to give him nour- 
 ishment to sustain life. After this he made a rapid 
 recovery and has been perfectly well ever since. 
 
 On securing a history, after. his recovery, I found 
 that he had been advised by the school doctor, at the 
 end of the previous school year, to consult a surgeon, 
 but that his mother, a Christian Scientist of the extreme 
 type, had violently opposed his seeing a doctor, in 
 spite of the fact that the father and six other children 
 favoured having medical attention. Every time the 
 subject was mentioned, she would flare up and go into 
 hysterics, but finally, on the date mentioned above, 
 when the father saw that the child was strangling to 
 death, he disregarded her protestations and brought 
 him to my office in a taxi. If he had been five minutes 
 later the boy would have died from strangulation. It 
 is needless to say that the boy has been permanently 
 cured of Christian Science foolishness, as have all the 
 members of the family, except the mother. 
 
 Kidney Abscess—A Narrow Escape. 
 
 The patient, an educated man and president of a 
 large corporation, came to me in October, 1923. He 
 had pus and blood in the urine with pain in the right 
 loin, together with other signs and symptoms of a kid- 
 ney infection, which led me to make a diagnosis of 
 “surgical kidney.” I advised an operation as the 
 safest way out of a serious condition. He demurred to 
 this, and a few days later informed me that he had 
 decided to make a change. He had been told that 
 Christian Science had cured two just such cases as his, 
 and so he had decided to try to get well without an 
 operation. 
 
396 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 I heard no more from him till the middle of Janu- 
 ary, 1924, at which time he called for me to come down 
 and bring along something to freeze a “couple of 
 boils ”! When I entered the room, I saw a man who 
 had lost fifty-five pounds in weight and was almost 
 dead of sepsis. A large lumbar abscess was about to 
 burst in two places (the boils). His lips were as white 
 as his cheeks. After much argument, he consented to 
 be moved to a hospital, but only on condition that he 
 could have mental treatments to prevent complications. 
 I incised the abscesses and evacuated a quart of offen- 
 sive pus, and along with the pus poured out most of the 
 disintegrated right kidney. He has had a lung com- 
 plication, and faces another operation to clean up the 
 ‘* mess.” 
 
 Gangrenous A ppendicitis—A bscess—Peritonitis— 
 Death. 
 
 On August 8, 1915, I was called, about four o’clock 
 in the morning, to attend a case in a Christian Science 
 home. Both the mother and the aunt were readers in 
 the Christian Science Church, and had been admin- 
 istering Science treatments to patients for several 
 years. 
 
 According to the history, the patient, a young man 
 of seventeen, had been seized, several days previous to 
 my visit, with severe abdominal pain and vomiting. 
 The pain continued for about three days, and then 
 suddenly ceased, due, according to the relatives, to 
 the Science treatment. The patient grew steadily 
 weaker and the relatives became alarmed and sent for 
 a doctor. 
 
 Upon examination, I found the patient was dead. 
 Abdominal examination showed a mass in the right 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 397 
 
 lower quadrant, which was hard and dull. From the 
 history, a probable diagnosis of acute appendicitis, 
 with abscess formation, was made. ‘The case was re- 
 ported to the coroner, who made a postmortem exami- 
 nation. A ruptured gangrenous appendix was found 
 surrounded by about a quart of pus. 
 
 Anal cope tiygaid 
 
 Some years ago, the mother of a prominent Chicago 
 dentist came under my care for a mysterious bowel 
 trouble that Christian Science practitioners had for 
 many months vainly tried to relieve. She was an 
 elderly woman, weighing two hundred and twenty-five 
 pounds, and lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She 
 had not, for months, had more than the slightest pas- 
 sages from the bowels—a little brown very fetid feces. 
 At last, leaving Grand Rapids, she came to Chicago 
 and took rooms opposite the Christian Science Temple 
 on Drexel Boulevard, where demonstrations were main- 
 tained for six or more weeks, with no relief. 
 
 Under my observation an anal stricture (homeo- 
 pathic hemorrhoidal operation) was discovered. After 
 snipping the cord about the anus, nurses were kept 
 busy for days, ascending and descending with vast 
 vessels of feces before the old lady was emptied out. 
 
 Lesson: Christian Science no good for anal stricture. 
 
 Strangulated Hernia—At Christian Science 
 Convention. 
 
 Miss J. F., aged thirty-two, single, went to Boston 
 and attended a Christian Science convention. While 
 there, a small lump appeared in the right femoral re- 
 gion, which caused pain and vomiting. The vomiting 
 persisted, but she did not call a physician until the 
 
398 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 sixth day, when she was brought to the hospital by 
 her relatives. 
 
 She was then delirious from absorption of the poison- 
 ous contents of the obstructed bowel. The hernia was 
 operated upon, and the intestine in the hernial sac 
 found gangrenous. The intestine was opened, and its 
 toxic contents let out, but the patient never rallied; 
 she died twenty-four hours after her admission to the 
 hospital, her delirium never having subsided. 
 
 Diphtheria—No Antitoxin—Death. 
 
 In connection with my Health Department duties, I 
 investigated a diphtheria death which may be of 
 interest. 
 
 A little boy, J. . M., aged thirteen years, died after 
 an illness lasting a week. After the boy had been 
 under Christian Science treatment for three days, a 
 doctor was called, but he seemed to be of the same 
 stamp as the Christian Scientists, as he did not give the 
 treatment insisted on by the Department in all cases of 
 diphtheria, at the City Contagious Disease Hospital. 
 The parents are said to have objected to antitoxin be- 
 cause they were Christian Scientists. The doctor who 
 was called, and who signed the death certificate, man- 
 ages to get his name in between Christian Science 
 victims and coroner’s investigations with considerable 
 regularity. He is evidently a “ hired Hessian”? who 
 has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. We meet 
 his kind in other parts of our jurisdiction. The father 
 stated to me that he thought the boy was much better 
 on the sixth day of his illness. When it is remembered 
 that the little fellow died on the seventh day, we see 
 how utterly worthless are the statements of a Christian 
 Scientist when he talks about sickness. 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 399 
 
 Syphilis—Nose Lost. 
 
 Some time ago, Mrs. M., the mother of a janitor 
 living on West Fulton Street, Chicago, called me to her 
 home for the treatment of a large ulcerating hole, 
 which had completely taken the place of her nose. 
 The nose itself was completely ulcerated off, excepting 
 a small projection at the top about one-half inch long. 
 After taking a careful history, the diagnosis was clearly 
 one of syphilis. This woman said she had been under 
 Christian Science treatment for four years past, and 
 during that four years had not seen a physician. After 
 several treatments of 606 and several injections of 
 mercury the ulceration completely healed over, and the 
 woman’s general condition improved very, very much. 
 
 I have had several similar cases in my seventeen 
 years’ experience, but none so exaggerated as this one. 
 This woman subsequently kept herself entirely apart 
 from Christian Science and the world at large, so that 
 the facts of the case would not become known. They 
 soon afterward moved from this territory, and I have 
 not seen her since. 
 
 I don’t object, in the least, to your using my name 
 in this case, as the records are all perfectly clear, and 
 unless the woman is dead by now, I am sure she is still 
 travelling around minus her nose. 
 
 Head Injuries—Automobile Accident. 
 
 In February, 1922, I was called to the hospital to 
 give emergency attention to an aged man who had just 
 been injured by an automobile. He had been run 
 down while attempting to cross the boulevard during a 
 busy hour. 
 
 The patient, Mr. B., was a Christian Scientist. His 
 wife was, and is a prominent Christian Science prac- 
 
400 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 titioner whose card is carried on the approved list in 
 The Christian Science Journal. I had known Mr. B. 
 for over twenty years. 
 
 He was conscious, but it was evident that he had 
 been severely injured. The hospital office was directed 
 to notify his wife. This was done. First aid was 
 given and the patient made as comfortable as was 
 possible. The practitioner-wife, if she took any notice 
 of the matter whatever, may have given “ absent treat- 
 ment.” At any rate, she did not visit the hospital. 
 The patient gradually passed into unconsciousness, and 
 the next day died from intracerebral hemorrhage. 
 
 The practitioner-wife, reputed to be well-to-do, on 
 account of a lucrative Christian Science healing busi- 
 ness, ignored the bill for medical services rendered to 
 her husband. In short, treated the whole affair as if 
 nothing had happened. 
 
 Characteristic Hypocrisy. 
 
 A middle-aged man consulted me, less than two 
 years ago, on account of large bilateral inguinal her- 
 nias. He announced the nature of his trouble, and 
 stated that he wished to have an operation performed. 
 I was somewhat amused, as this man was a prominent 
 Christian Scientist, and at the time the “ first reader ” 
 in his church. 
 
 He said that he could no longer put up with his phys- 
 ical disability, that he had tried to ignore the condition, 
 but that something had to be done. He further stated 
 that he had known of so many successful operations 
 for rupture, that he had decided to have a surgeon 
 relieve his infirmity. An operation was arranged for 
 and the usual radical operation done. About a year 
 afterward one of the hernias recurred, and a second 
 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 401 
 
 operation was performed. Both times while a patient 
 in the hospital he was a “ regular fellow,” asking for 
 and receiving medicine for pain. Everything offered 
 for the relief of his discomfort was eagerly accepted. 
 
 Since the second operation, I have not been con- 
 sulted by him, but am reliably informed that he is still 
 the “ reader ” in his church, and that when so officiat- 
 ing, wears the same old empty stare. During the rest 
 of the week he serves his fellow townsmen in the 
 capacity of mayor. 
 
 Peritonitis—A ppendicitis—A bscess. 
 
 On the evening of March 21, 1923, I was called to 
 see Florence, little daughter of J. W. Upon arriving 
 at the bedside, I elicited the following history from the 
 mother: The child had become ill about ten days pre- 
 viously with pain in its stomach, worse on the right 
 side, it vomited and had some fever. A Christian 
 Science practitioner was called the next day and came 
 regularly each day for about five days. During this 
 time there was no apparent change in the condition of 
 the child. About the end of the fifth day the pain 
 suddenly subsided, vomiting ceased and the child was 
 apparently so much better that the practitioner next 
 day pronounced her well, and told the parents she 
 would not be back. 
 
 The child, however, evinced no desire to get up, but 
 lay perfectly quiet in bed, and took no nourishment 
 except a little water, which was retained. After a 
 couple of days of this, the pain returned, and later the 
 vomiting. These symptoms gradually increased in in- 
 tensity up to the time I was called, three days after- 
 wards. The healer had been recalled in the meantime, 
 but her ministrations were of no avail. 
 
402 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 Upon examining the child, I found a temperature of 
 102° F., a rapid thready pulse, a tense tympanitic ab- 
 domen so sensitive that the merest touch caused the 
 child to cry out. The lower half of the abdomen was 
 slightly dull on light percussion. The history was so 
 clear-cut that deep palpation and percussion (which 
 would have been very painful to the little patient) 
 were not attempted—indeed, it did not seem necessary. 
 It was plain that there had been an acute purulent 
 infection of the appendix, which had burst open about 
 the end of the fifth day, thus accounting for the tem- 
 porary cessation of pain and vomiting. A little later, 
 peritonitis developed, and at the time of the exami- 
 nation the lower abdomen was evidently filling up 
 with pus. . 
 
 I urged the immediate removal of the child to a hos- 
 pital so that the abdomen could be opened, and the 
 patient given the one chance she had left for her life. 
 They would not consent to so then, but said they would 
 let me know in the morning. I did not hear from them 
 until the morning of the second day thereafter, when 
 they informed me they had decided to take her to a 
 hospital. She was removed to the hospital, where the 
 abdomen was opened, and, as we anticipated, found it 
 full of pus—at least a quart of it—with diffuse peri- 
 tonitis present. Drainage was established, and every- 
 thing done to help maintain the little one’s strength, 
 but she gradually failed, and died on the third day 
 after the operation. 
 
V 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 as a system of treating human ailments, is thus 
 seen to be cruel FAILURE. The best that can be 
 said of it is that it may divert the patient’s attention 
 while other factors make for the cure of his infirmity. 
 The worst that should be said of it cannot be ut- 
 tered, as mere words are wholly inadequate to depict 
 the iniquity of this nefarious traffic in human life. 
 Christian Science, shorn of its mask of religion, stalks 
 forth the arch-demon of the medical underworld. The 
 nearest to a true estimate of the value of this fake 
 therapeutic agent is recorded only in the churchyard. 
 Christian Science is an assassin of humanity. To 
 every form of human misery, it brings its one offering 
 —arrogant, boastful, criminal ignorance. It obtrudes 
 its hateful presence between suffering humanity and 
 the only known means of relief. It supplants surgery 
 with sorcery and tender solicitude with brutal neglect. 
 With hostile mien it stands guard against curative 
 medicine at the bedside of childhood while death strikes 
 down the helpless babe. Christian Science is the ad- 
 vance agent of scourge and pestilence, the ally of small- 
 pox and consumption, the confederate of appendicitis 
 and typhoid fever, and the executioner for cancer and 
 intestinal obstruction. 
 Against every victory of scientific medicine, Chris- 
 tian Science makes angry protest. Every advance in 
 
 403 
 
 H's: the medical standpoint, Christian Science, 
 
404 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
 
 preventive medicine is fought through in the face of 
 virulent opposition from this miserly-fisted parasite. 
 
 Highwaymen demand: “ Your money or your life. 
 Christian Science, beguiling with siren smile, deluding 
 with false promise, takes—youR MONEY and YOUR 
 LIFE]! 
 
 9 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX .: 
 
 Adam, 20, 83, 117 
 
 Adams, George Wendall, 204 
 
 Alcott, Bronson, 13, 17, 18, 19, 
 68-96, 115, 123, 222 
 
 Animal Magnetism, Malicious, 
 (See Demonology) 
 
 Alcott, Louisa, 68 
 
 Arens, 25 
 
 Armstrong, 262 
 
 Arnold, Judge, 264 
 
 Autocracy, 165-180 
 
 Autocrats, 180-205 
 
 Autopsy, 313 
 
 Babel, 20 
 
 Bachelder, Jacob, 81 
 Baker, Albert, 84, 120, 138 
 Baker, Mary Ann, 253 
 Barnum, P. T., 264-265 
 Binet, 39 
 
 Blood, Babe 
 
 Boehme, Jakob, 20575) 87. 
 Brown, ‘Lucretia tr. soa 
 Bruce, H. A., 41 
 
 Cambridge History of Ameri- 
 can Literature, 11, 76, 220- 
 224 
 
 Cases (Medical), (See Fail- 
 ures), 338-403 
 
 Cash, 263-295 
 
 Cather, Willa S., 215 
 
 Catholics, Roman, 175, 219 
 
 Chandler, William E., 214, 286 
 
 Choate, Judge, 268 
 
 Church Manual, 165-179 
 
 Clapp, Catherine IL. 247 
 
 Collyer, 57 
 
 Conway, Moncure, 153 
 
 Coué, 175 
 
 Crosby, Sarah G., 84, 119, 120, 
 122 
 
 Cruden, 155 
 Cudworth, 87 
 
 “Cures” (of Mit at Sci- 
 ence), 322-33 
 Cutten, G. B., it 45 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 68 
 
 Davis, A. J., 84, 134, 302 
 
 Deceit (Medical), 307-322 
 
 Demonology, (Malicious Ani- 
 mal Magnetism), 103-114, 
 ESD) 132)1151-158 
 
 Dercum, F. X., 51 
 
 Devil, 20, 44 
 
 Dial, The, 20 
 
 Dickey, Adam H., 180, 186, 189, 
 190, 191, 192, 194-201, 203, 
 204, 261-262 
 
 Directors, Board of (See Auto- 
 crats), 165-180 
 
 Diseases (See Failures) 
 Abscess, 357, 372, 395, 401 
 Buia: 379, 389, 399, 
 
 Cancer, 341, 350, 367, 376 
 
 Diabetes, 381, 384 
 
 Diphtheria, 343, 346, 365, 
 367, 387, 398 
 
 Epilepsy, 393 
 
 Fibroid, Uterine, 375 
 
 Gall Stones, 382 
 
 Goiter, 392, 394 
 
 Heart Disease, Valvular, 384 
 
 Hemorrhage, 344, 347 
 
 Hernia, 354, 397, 401 
 
 Infantile Paralysis, 360 
 
 Insanity, 351, 352 
 
 Lead Poisoning, 377 
 
 Meningitis, 372, 387 
 
 “Mental Obstetrics,” 
 8/15 3/2 
 
 Peritonitis, 379, 399, 401 
 
 Pneumonia, 348, 362, 383, 
 392, 393 
 
 Scarlet Fever, 357, 365, 387 
 
 Smallpox, 361, 366 
 
 368, 
 
 405 
 
406 
 
 Stricture, Anal, 397 
 
 Syphilis, 399 
 
 Tuberculosis, 346, 367, 381, 
 385, 389 
 
 Tumour, 353, 378 
 
 Tetanus, 362 
 
 Typhoid, 315, 316, 358, 379 
 
 Urinary Retention, Acute, 
 389 
 
 Dittemore, John V., 184, 186, 
 196-197, 200, 202-204 
 
 Divine Science, 96-103 
 
 Dodge, Judge Frederic, 
 196-200 
 
 Dowie, J. A., 
 
 Dresser, H; WW. 4 G1 Noes HA Mey fe 
 224 
 
 Dresser, J. A., 34 
 
 Dunmore, Earl of, 246, 260, 262 
 
 Durant, 16 
 
 Eddy, Asa G., 288 
 Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker, Life, 
 
 1-23 
 Eggleston, Edward, 108 
 Elder, Samuel J., 212 
 Emerson, Edward, 80 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 21, 78, 
 79, 82, 98 
 Eustace, 180, 186 
 Evans, W. F., 42 
 
 Failures (Medical), 338-403 
 
 Farlow, Alfred, 100, 258, 262 
 
 Fére, 39 
 
 Finances ees Cash), 263-295 
 
 Fiske, John, 4 
 
 Flournoy, 83, 84 
 
 Foster-Eddy, 156, 271 
 
 Fox Sisters, (See Rochester 
 Rappings) 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 16, 39 
 
 Frazer, 103 
 
 Frye, Calvin A., 190, 218, 275 
 
 Fuller, Margaret, 21 
 
 Galen, 302 
 
 Garrison, F. H., 108 
 Genesis, 95 
 
 Glover, George W., 246 
 
 166, 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gnostics, 47, 101 
 Greatrakes, 302 
 
 Hahnemann, 66 
 ae Septimus J., 256-257, 
 Re 
 
 Harris, P0764." 65 
 
 Harris, W. T., 69, 70, 76, 77, 
 79, 100 
 
 Hart, Bernard, 114-132 
 
 Hawley, John §S., 261, 262 
 
 Hegel, 79-#/, J ist 
 
 Hendricks, Haran 215 
 
 Holmes, Lucy, 247 
 
 Huntoon, Mehitable, 118 
 
 Hypnotism, 99, 175, 176 
 
 Irwin, Will, 215 
 
 Jacoby, G. W., 59 
 
 Jastrow, Joseph, 105, 110-113, 
 114, 143 
 
 Johnson, 262 
 
 Jones, Dr., 81 
 
 Kennedy, Richard, 111, 131 
 pie Edward E., 258-259, 
 262 
 
 Lee, Mother Ann (See also 
 Shakers), 13, 64, 76, 134, 
 136-140, 222 
 
 Leonard, Mrs. P. J., 259, 262 
 
 Lies, 240-256 
 
 Louttit, George W., 145 
 
 MacNeil, Sir John, 127, 246-247 
 
 Malicious Animal Magnetism 
 (See Demonology) 
 
 Marriage and Sex, 134-145 
 
 Matthews, Nathan, 232, 233, 
 235, 236 
 
 McClure, S. S., 215 
 
 McLellan, 197, 198 
 
 McLellan, Archibald, 257-258, 
 262 
 
 Melville, Herman, 108 
 
 Merritt, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201 
 
 Mesmerism, 15, 39, 45, 52, ig 
 75, 70, 104, 105 
 
INDEX 
 
 Milmine, Georgine, 33, 66, 68, 
 76, 84, 112, 120, 122, 127, 131, 
 155, 214-217 
 
 Moon, R. C., 59 
 
 More, 87 
 
 Mormons (Latter Day Saints), 
 Pay loo: Nog weep eal eae 
 
 Moses, 20 
 Munchausen, 240-241, 
 
 4 
 Murray, M. A., 157 
 
 Neal, 195, 196, 197, 198, 201 
 Neo- ‘Platonism, 19, 70, 76, 100 
 Neuburger, 43, 103 
 
 Noyes, Rufus Ri 112 
 
 O’Brien, Mrs. Sibyl Wilbur, 
 217-219 
 
 Orphic Sayings (see Bronson 
 Alcott), 23, 68-96 
 
 Paget, Stephen, 156-157 
 
 Paine, Martyn, 66 
 
 Parasite, Medical, 299-307 
 
 ea Christian Science, 
 173 
 
 Baron, 
 
 Personal Sources, 11-24 
 
 Perry, Baxter E., 235-237 
 
 Peter, St., 47, 231 
 
 Pierce, Franklin, 138 
 
 Plagiarism, 24-32 
 
 Plato, 65, 78, 135 
 
 Plotinus, 71075) OF 
 
 Podmore, Frank, 57, 65, 84, 
 104, 134 
 
 Poyen, Charles, 16, 57 
 
 Pratt, Mrs. F. Alcott, 68 
 
 Prayer, 209-210 
 
 Psycho-Analysis, 114-134, 151, 
 155 
 
 Publication, Committee of (See 
 chapter ‘“‘Suppression”’), 205- 
 226 
 
 Publishing Society, Christian 
 Science, (See Autocrats), 
 180-205 
 
 Quimby, P. P., 13, 16, 17, 24-68, 
 pee 224, 242-244, 248, 254, 
 
 407 
 
 Rathvon, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201 
 se Dr.. Charles A. L., 250- 
 
 Rice, Mrs., 125 
 
 ea Henry, 158-159, 211- 
 
 Robinson, Samuel, 81 
 
 Rochester Rappings, 52, 57 
 
 Roger, 16 
 
 paaror FB, Be 70, 76,79; 82, 
 
 Schroeder, (eeu 139-142, 
 147- 148, 157 
 
 Sex, (See Marriage and Sex), 
 134-145 
 
 Shakerism (see also Mother 
 Ann Lee), 75, 134, 135, 136- 
 140 
 
 Sherman, Clarence E., 81 
 
 Smith, Joseph, Jr., Mormon 
 Prophet, 15, 119, 
 
 Smith, William, 154 
 
 Smith, W. F., 219 
 
 Southcott, Joanna, 174 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 53 
 
 Spiritualism, 15, 52, 57, 77, 122 
 
 Spofford, Daniel H., 33, 78, 96, 
 111, 131, 267, 268, 271 
 
 Spofford, M. A., 267 
 
 Statistics, (Church Member- 
 ship), 182-184, 285-286 
 
 Stanley, Charles, 268, 271 
 
 Stetson, Augusta E., 126, 127, 
 te 143, 145, 146, 149, 150, 
 
 1 
 Stoddard, A. M., 72 
 Streeter, Frank GC. 180, 188-189, 
 192-194 
 Strickler, 262 
 Summary (Mrs. Eddy), 145-159 
 Suppression, 11, 205-226 
 Swedenborg, 302 
 Swindling, 226-240 
 
 Testimonials of Healing, (See 
 Cures), 322-337 
 
 Thoreau, 68, 77, 79 
 
 Tremearne, A. J. N., 157 
 
 Trismegistus, Hermes, 11, 223 
 
408 
 
 Tyler, E. B., 155 
 
 Turner, George Kibby, 215 
 
 Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clem- 
 ens), 165, 167, 182, 203, 222, 
 226, 227, 233, 240, 276, 279 
 
 Upham, C. W., 145, 152-153 
 Walton, Christopher, 86 
 
 Watts, John R., 183 
 Wells, F bely 158 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wentworth, Charles O., 247 
 Wentworth, Boel 435; 44, 247 
 Wentworth, Mrs. Sally, 247 
 Whitman, Walt, 178 
 Wiggin, James Henry, 104, 228 
 Wilbur, Sibyl (see O’Brien) 
 Witchcraft, (see Demonology) 
 Woodbury, BL 267 
 Woodbury, Mrs. eee he 
 143, 145, 146, 155 
 Wright, Wallace W., 131 
 
RELIGION AND HEALING, ETC. 
 
 
 
 S. D. GORDON 
 Quiet Talks About the Healing Christ 
 
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 this generation. Mr. Gordon emphasizes the thought that 
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 Physician are the same as for spiritual healing. 
 
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 Divine Healing---Does God Perform 
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 Dr. Torrey writes in a helpful, elucidating way of what 
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TIMELY ESSAYS AND STUDIES 
 es 
 
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TRAVEL AND DISCOVERY 
 
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 ROGER W. BABSON 
 
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TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION 
 
 
 
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INSPIRATION AND SELF-HELP 
 
 
 
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